A Marriage of Convenience
by Sigmu
Summary: It would be a union of mutual benefit; Raven would be free of her title, and Faybelle would gain an extra one. However Apple White finds herself opposing this marriage... but is it for more reasons than just the fact that she want's Raven to become the Evil Queen? Apple isn't so sure anymore and if she does not figure it out then she'll lose Raven, and have to deal with Faybelle.
1. Chapter 1

A/n: I noticed that there doesn't seem to be any Faybelle/Raven fanfics floating around, let alone any Faybelle/Raven vs. Apple/Raven fanfics, and if there is, I can't find them. So I decided to try my hand at one.

Now I'd like to clarify first that Faybelle/Raven isn't my main OTP ship in this fandom, I'm more of a Raven/Apple fan. The reason I have written this though, is partially to be one of the first to write about these three in a love triangle capacity and partially because of a few reviews that had come up from my previous fanfic (if you have read through my previous story; The True Love Loophole, you will see that I had made light mention of Faybelle flirting with Raven to get on Apple's nerves, this was initially just a light hearted story plot but now I've gotten interested in taking things a step further) that stated how interesting it might be if there was a Raven/Faybelle fanfic out there or if there was more Faybelle vs. Apple for Raven's heart.

On another note I've decided to keep my theory that; Raven had been physically abused by her mother, in this story as well; it just makes the story flow better and makes the Evil Queen easier to write up as being truly monstrous.

Hopefully this will be shorter than my previous story.

XXX

 _Some year's prior…_

"Maddie you didn't have to pull that trick out of your hat, now everybody thinks that there's this bouncy ball monster out there seeking to drag little children to their doom." An eleven-year-old Raven chided softly as the two sat on a low branch of a tree in the deserted part of the playground.

"I don't have to be polite to bullies harming my extended kin." Maddie sniffed swinging her legs, her usual madly chipper mood dampened with something that passed for simmering anger on any other person. "You've already proved more than enough times that you are not like that horrible creature and yet they condemn you so readily even after you had proven yourself."

Raven merely shrugged looking down.

The witch's friend hesitated before speaking. "Perhaps if you show them that you too had been wronged-"

"Maddie no, telling them about the owies _she_ gave me… that will only make things worse." Raven shook her head. "It will only give them more reason to hate me."

"They would hate you for suffering wounds and mistreatment from the same woman who had wronged them?" Maddie challenged. "In Wonderland you would be seen as very brave for surviving such crimes. You would be given the chance to train in order to defeat our common enemy and right her wrongs so that proper madness could be restored!"

Raven sighed at her friend's (her _only_ friend's) outrage. "It's just not how things work in Ever After, I do not have the opportunity to prove anything, my name has been disgraced, I will be hated for following my destiny, and despised if I don't by the same people, my only hope for a normal life is after my role has finished… after I change my appearance and become someone different." Raven looked up at the sun peeking at her through the leaves of the tree. "I won't have any children of my own, they won't be able to find me if I hide in plain sight, I will be presumed dead or simply missing and Headmaster Grimm will be forced to find some other family to take on the role."

Maddie makes an irritated clicking sound with her tongue. "I don't understand this world at all, there is no method to this madness." She growled. "Not even the adults here will protect you. They'd sooner throw you to a hungry jabberwocky and then complain about how your screams were giving them a headache."

"I am dishonored." Raven spoke as she blinked away the mist covering her eyes. "Unless I can find a way to regain it, the only thing I'm good for to them is… just a puppet playing a part in a story, once they have finished their happy ending and throw me away… I'll disappear, become someone they don't recognize, only you and my father's family will know what had become of me, and they'll never think to find me in plain sight." The witch repeated trying to make herself better.

"Is there no other option?" Maddie asked gently gathering her friend into a hug, out of habit she is mindful of the covered wounds that had long ago healed into scars upon the witch's flesh.

"If one becomes available… even if there is just a fraction of a chance of it working… I think that I'd jump for it…" Raven mused as she rested her tired head on Maddie's shoulder.

XXX

 _Present day…_

Raven stared down dejectedly at her bare body as small streams of water flowed down over the scarred skin of her torso. She sighed heavily as she rested her forehead against the metal pipe that stood in the center of this particular walled off shower corner in the girl's locker room. The pipe had five showerheads affixed to it that allowed a water to spray in all three hundred and sixty degrees of direction for multiple people to use, not that the extra showerheads were really necessary since there was more than enough individual shower stalls and other shower corners in the girl's locker room to satisfy over three ten-student P.E. classes, really all that was needed was for the school to install a large bathing pool and they could open up a bathhouse just like the ones that were so common in both the Queen family's realm and her father's kingdom.

They should just simply convert this building into a bathhouse the witch mused, as a general rule at Ever After High girls taking P.E. was strictly optional and all the girls with P.E. in their schedules were assigned to the last period of the day to have that class, and since most girls preferred the privacy of their own dorm bathrooms to freshen up virtually no one used the showers in the girl's locker room.

Which was why Raven was in here now, late in the evening after having set up her emergency overnight kit and sleeping bag in a warm, dry corner and getting ready to spend the weekend hiding in the deserted locker room.

The past two days had been… not terrible but difficult; it was maiden appreciation weekend which meant that she had to spend a good portion of her time on Friday tactfully dodging Apple and her attempts to get Raven to join the best villain contest featured as one of the main events (which comprised of Raven waking up before Apple and quietly rushing through her morning routine and getting out the door before the princess could wake up, and ducking out of the princess's sight all day).

Apple had gotten back at her for daring to avoid the issue and the princess, because Apple had taken the liberty of signing Raven up for the blasted competition anyway. Raven had a good five minutes of her life wasted explaining to an elated (it was almost heartbreaking how _happy_ the man had seemed) Headmaster Grimm that it was _Apple_ who had signed Raven up for the competition _without her permission_ and that she was _not_ going to participate in the best villain contest regardless of being signed up for it or not, which added about ten more minutes of Raven's wasted time to the tally as she argued with the grown man (though it was difficult to see him as such since she had met small children with better, more mature arguing skills than this man in regards to her life choices) telling him that she didn't _care_ that they had reserved some special spot for her at some victory dinner and pointedly reminding him that he could not force her to go if she did not want to (As politely as she could because even though the Headmaster was not acting like a proper mature adult, he was still the Headmaster and so out of self-preservation Raven did her best to at least pretend to listen to the man's reasons before shooting them all down as nicely as she could).

While the festivities of the two and a half day celebration of Maiden Appreciation Weekend were still all far easier to deal with than Princess Appreciation Day (Raven dreaded that day the most, it even beat the anniversary of her mother poisoning the different worlds and barely topped the anniversary of the day she had received her scars), between several Royals insisting on screaming and running away from her and this whole business with the villain competition, Raven had decided that she could stock up on nonperishable food, take her kit, and hide for the next three nights and two days.

Normally she would've just bunked with Maddie… but she had left with her roommate and current girlfriend, Kitty, for the weekend to spend some quality time together in the Queen's realm (sixteen was the legal adult age in Wonderland and since they were both seventeen and therefore, by their homeland's laws, consenting adults…) Raven had even gone so far as to pull a few strings for them so that they could have her family's beachfront cottage all to themselves, the two deserved some time to relax after having to deal with all the sympathetic looks people were giving them after the anniversary of Wonderland's poisoning earlier in the week.

Raven placed her hands on the warm metal pipe to steady her as she arched back and let the hot water drop onto her forehead and hair, through squinting eyes she stared up at the mosaic on the ceiling (why they had put a mosaic there she could not fathom why), the artwork depicting an old-styled map of Ever After, the witch's eyes traced over the boundaries between the kingdoms that were visible to her before settling on the Queen territory situated over the far dividing wall and then to the King kingdom directly above her head.

Raven stayed like that, staring contemplatively between the two realms, both were her homelands by blood and yet…

Raven padded her way to the fat ribbon of unclaimed land that stretched between the two realms, separating the two for centuries… until she had been born.

Raven reached for the King lands, her fingers stretching in vain to touch the colorful stones.

"Father…" Raven whispered, grief lacing her voice, she missed her father terribly and she hated that he was unable to claim her as his blood relative until she had graduated and enough years had passed for the stigma of her mother's blood had faded, a far better prospect than before she had denied her destiny, where she would have had to change her name and appearance before she could become his legal heir.

On that thought Raven turned to the Queen territory her other hand pointing almost accusingly at the mapped image of her maternal lands, a scowl settled onto her features.

"Mother." Raven spat remembering why parts of her still ached when the weather changed and how her blood had been used as an ingredient to make curses used to poison the other worlds…

A fact she daren't tell anyone else aside from Maddie, the last thing she needed was to deal with was even more fodder for people to throw in her face as an excuse to despise her for crimes she had not committed.

…And Apple would be devastated if she knew the truth.

While Apple's determination for Raven to become the next Evil Queen was, annoying, and sometimes hurtful… Raven cherished the princess's clear minded innocence on the issue, it seemed like Apple genuinely believed that Raven's life would get better if she finally gave in and became the Evil Queen, played out the part in their story, and proved to the world that she was not her mother.

Or at least that was what Raven had deduced, after all Apple said that she cared about Raven and therefore would not actively wish the witch to live the rest of her life under the scorned shadow and shame of being related to the current Evil Queen.

Apple was one of the few Royals who was nice to Raven, treated Raven well despite their differences in beliefs.

And despite herself Raven had begun… to develop feelings, dangerous, inappropriate feelings for Apple, her story's princess…

And if she followed her destiny she would lose that princess in both friendship and… well any potential for anything else, to the story, to the prince, the title, and the hatred directed towards the witch for becoming the very thing everyone loved to hate…

But if she did not follow destiny, like she was going to do, Apple will grow to hate her, eventually giving up on Raven, perhaps even going as far as to ostracize her while searching for a villain alternative.

So in the end Raven would lose the last person who hoped for a brighter, honorable future under the path of tradition.

Raven let her arms and head fall.

"Do I… belong anywhere?" She whispered, tears welling in her eyes.

Her father could not claim her as his heir.

Her mother had hurt her, dishonored their name, and left Raven to pick up the pieces.

And Apple would eventually throw her away, it didn't matter which path she chose, Rebel or Royal. Her last tie to the tiniest scrap of her maternal family's honor… her precious friendship with Apple… gone.

If only she could runaway from all this… insanity just as easily as she had just missed the ridiculous villain contest, find a way to free herself from the blood obligations and restore her family's honor in one fell swoop, keep herself safe from the scheming Headmaster and others who would like nothing more than to parade her around like… some sort of exotic pet, or bound demon, always to be seen and feared but not heard.

The Rebel cause was one way but would it be enough to save her from them? Was it possible for her to ever hope to become a child of both her inherited lands? Or would she have to disappear, become someone new, a stranger to herself before she could ever truly taste freedom?

She dreaded the hype that was going to come her way on Monday…

"Hex it Apple White! Why did you have to sign me up for that stupid competition?" Raven pled the green tiled wall heartbrokenly.

"So what I overheard was true, you never wanted to be in this competition in the first place?" A voice spoke from behind her.

Raven turned sharply around to the sight of Faybelle standing in the open entrance to the walled shower corner.

To add to the shock the fairy wasn't wearing a stitch of clothing on her body.

"Fa-Fa-Faybelle?" Raven squeaked, as she stood frozen to her spot.

"Hi." The fairy waved.

As if she had stepped on a live wire Raven broke out of her frozen shock and did the only logical thing that anyone who had just turned around to discover an unnoticed naked intruder in a place that was supposed to be deserted would do.

The witch screamed, flailing comically before retreating to the opposite corner, sat down and attempted to cover both her nudity and her scars.

"You startle easy, has anyone ever told you that?" The fairy observed calmly hands on her bare hips.

"What are you doing here? No one comes here!" Raven asked a blush spreading over her cheeks.

"Well…" Faybelle pointed obviously to the running shower pipe. "Does taking a bath in a public bathing place offer up a satisfying explanation?"

"But you said that you hated this girl's locker room, you said that the one you and the other Cheerhexers use by the stadium is more than enough! I heard you call this place a waste of space!" Raven pointed out still completely frazzled by the other's presence.

"That's because it is." The fairy snorted. "You remember me saying that? Impressive… for a wannabe Evil doer." Faybelle admitted reluctantly, it had been months since she had last made grumbling comments about the useless building they were in.

"Why are you here Faybelle?" Raven growled warningly. "The truth this time!"

"I had seen you walking in this direction earlier and so after you had somehow managed to win the first round to the best villain contest without hide nor hair of you being seen, I decided to sniff you out to pick a bone with you about it." The fairy admitted easily, unashamed of her actions.

" _I what_?" Raven shrieked completely outraged. "But I wasn't there! I didn't want to be signed up for that in the first place! That's why I hid; I didn't want to be apart of any of it!" The witch howled, tugging agitatedly at her hair.

"Good to see that you despise this just as much as I did." Faybelle admitted with approval. "The competition lasts until the last day, were you really going to hide here until the weekend was over?"

"I don't see myself having any other option!" Raven hissed irritated.

"Well it's not like they can force you to do anything." Faybelle pointed out.

"You haven't been living with Apple White for the past year, even though she can't make me do anything, both she and the Headmaster can cause me enough grief that hiding would just make everything easier." Raven grumbled sulkily. "And I was getting a migraine from everyone screaming _every time_ I entered a room."

Faybelle regarded Raven as if the fairy was looking at the witch for the very first time. "A witchling of the Queen clan cowering in terror from her own princess… there is just nothing about this scene that seems at all… dignified for my clan's enemy and my personal rival." The fairy murmured as she crossed her arms, sounding disappointed.

That had done it; Raven felt something inside her snap as the last of her patience fell away.

"For the last time I don't want to become the Evil Queen!" Raven roared getting to her feet and waving her fist at Faybelle. "I want to break free of that blasted family tradition, I want to restore honor to my name! How can you keep going around as if the title of Evil Queen is something that I can be proud of and yet you know more than anyone the shame I bear for the sins of that sorry excuse of a mother of mine? If you are so disgusted of the prospect of me becoming a villain then why don't you take over my destiny? You'd make both a better Evil Queen and Evil Fairy than I could ever hope or want to be! I've made it clear that I don't want it so why don't you take it?"

Silence hung between them, Raven standing angrily before the other and breathing hard while Faybelle stared at her with wide eyes.

"You'd give the title to me?" The fairy asked cautiously, a little vulnerably, as if she was fearful to believe her ears.

"I don't want it." Raven swore hoarsely. "But Apple still want's her fairytale and you would make a better Evil Queen than I ever could. It would be for the best, I have already suffered enough pain from my cursed blood." The witch swallowed thickly. "You're probably going to laugh at my weakness but to be completely and utterly honest, if you freed me of this cursed title… there would be a strong danger of me kissing you I'd be so grateful."

"Pain…" Faybelle whispered her aloof attitude changing into something more real, gentler towards the witch somehow. "You mentioned suffering pain because of your destiny, your scars… were they made because of your blood?"

"It was a long time ago, I don't want to talk about it, and this is none of your business." Raven said lowly, wrapping her arms around herself and looking away.

Faybelle shook her head taking a step forward. "It's too late to back out now Raven Queen, if you truly want me to take your title away from you, then you _have_ _to_ tell me about those scars, I need good cause to take away your title the honorable way and I get the feeling that those are my best bet."

The witch stilled, the implications of the other's words sinking in. "You are serious?" Raven breathed shallowly, studying Faybelle intently. "No tricks?"

"I want to become the most Evil Fairy in history, of course I'm serious!" Faybelle spat. "My family is due the honor your mother so rudely took from us, so cough it up!"

"You can't tell Apple!" Raven pled backing up till her skin touched the tiled wall. "If Apple found out about my scars, about how I got them she'll be devastated. She's so innocent and… and she still thinks that there is hope for me, to get my honor back, if she finds out the truth she'll pity me- I can't take _that much_ pity from anybody-, or equally as bad she'll grow to fear me for something I could not control, just like the rest of them do." The witch nearly sobbed, hating that she was feeling so exposed and vulnerable in front of someone who openly despised her, hating that she had gotten to the point where she was willing to risk more hurt just for a chance that Faybelle might actually help her…

Raven was so scared right now; she trembled where she stood under the weight of all the things that could go wrong.

"Kind of hard to fear you when you're trembling like a leaf and waxing on like that lovesick toad." Faybelle snorted. "Dear gods you would have made an embarrassingly horrible Evil Queen… Alright; but only because you insist, you have the honor of my word that I'll go about this discretely, but I still need to know, if not from you, then in some form of physical evidence. A paper trail I can present, healer visits, a complaint, hex knowing your mother there might be a death certificate for the person who had done this to you."

Raven flinched her breath hitching in panic.

"How did anyone even get close enough to touch you?" Faybelle asked suspiciously. "Even as a child you were well guarded, so much so that not even my mother could figure out who your father was, I suspect that it is not him since Briar has commented in the past how obviously fond you are of the man, so who could have gotten close enough to you that your mother could not protect you from them in time? And it certainly couldn't have been your mother who had done this." The fairy scoffed.

Raven flinched again; this time a pitiful whimper escaped her throat despite her best efforts to squash it. But if Faybelle needed the truth to take away that cursed title from her…

"I… my mother… is the one…" Raven looked down, shame washing over her. She felt overwhelmed, and far too exposed, but the proposal of being free of the Evil Queen destiny… it was just too good not to take a chance on. "She needed my blood… for the spell." The witch finally whispered, squeezing her eyes tight as the words escaped her mouth.

Raven could hear Faybelle's sharp intake of breath as the fairy stiffened.

The witch flinched but stayed still when pads of fingertips gently traced the line of a scar running along her clavicle and upper breast.

"Your own mother did this to you?" Faybelle's voice sounded grim as her fingertips continued to explore.

"I'm taking a big chance telling you this." Raven spoke her voice full of restrained emotion. "You better not be lying to me because I am truly desperate right now."

"There is a file, confidential of course, but there is a record that I have access to, of everything that had happened… please, if I give it up, you must be quiet about the information, not only for the sake of _my life_ but that of my _father's_ , his too could be on the line if the information got out to the wrong people." Raven admitted, clenching her hands as she prepared herself to take this final leap.

The Grand Coven, a group originally founded by witches to protect themselves from mistreatment and persecution, had evolved into a complex organization made up of all different kinds of magic-users, and they had their fingers in many trades, one of them being militaristic, mostly to combat threats like the current Evil Queen, the same branch that had rescued Raven so many years prior.

"You can download it to my phone." Faybelle murmured her breath cooling Raven's wet skin.

When Raven didn't move she felt warm hands rub her shoulders soothingly. "Are you going to be alright?" The other girl asked, in an uncharacteristic display of worry.

 _If I've gotten so low as to practically confess to something that could potentially make my life worse if just one thing goes wrong… no… but it's been like that for so long I don't remember how to care anymore_. Raven thought as she sighed, opening her eyes as she tried to shuffle past.

Raven paused when Faybelle refused to move away. "Why are you naked?" The witch said instead, her brows furrowing.

"'Cause I knew that your reaction to my lack of dress would be amusing." Faybelle admitted with a shrug.

"And was it?" Raven asked dryly.

"Yep. You didn't disappoint." The fairy nodded assuring-ly as she escorted Raven out of the shower.

"Good to know." The witch said, rolling her eyes.

They didn't speak as Faybelle dressed and Raven accessed the mentioned file with ease and as promised she downloaded as much relevant information she could, pointedly leaving out certain documents that did not relate to Raven's scars, Raven may be acting reckless but she was not so far gone as to give up everything to a practical stranger, before handing the phone back to faybelle.

At the very least her father's name had not been mentioned in the report, he would still be safe.

Raven stilled when the fairy levitated a towel to the damp witch and then wrapped Raven securely up in it.

"I will contact you when I've got more information, if don't have anything by this weekend it will surely come together on Monday." Faybelle stepped back, waving her hand around. "Have fun hiding from Apple in here. At least I'll know where to find you…" The fairy trailed off awkwardly as she made her leave.

The witch stood there, as still as possible, as her brain tried to grasp how fast the past few minutes seemed to have gone, how she had managed to lose control of the situation, and her life, so quickly.

Raven turned back to the shower in order to turn off the running water, finished dressing into her pajamas (an old and tattered t-shirt and shorts combination that Apple had been trying to quietly throw into the trash whenever she found them while gifting Raven with elegant dark silk sleeping gowns to wear instead), and curling up into her sleeping bag on the hard carpeted floor.

Sleep did not find the witch until a distressingly early hour in the morning, it was a good thing it was the weekend and she was hiding from the world because Raven did not believe that her nerves could take any more of the drama that usually happened on a natural day to day basis around Ever After High.

For her own sanity she hoped that Faybelle brought her some news before she had to face some other (now surprisingly less important) consequences by Monday.

XXX

A/n: just one last thought… do you guy's think I should include my previous OC's from my last story into this one (that is assuming that you've already read my previous story TTLLH)?


	2. Chapter 2

A/n: I have no idea why I have this headcannon of Raven as a sort of witchy-maiden… I suppose I'd just find it amusing if Raven had some gentle maiden qualities while still maintaining her outspoken independence, like her personality as a whole is the exact opposite of what her destiny dictates she be, which is a crude, devious, and dependently obsessed with the princess, bad guy. It would also be amusing if it's her hand being fought over by two completely different personalities, thus why I'm attempting this fic.

As for the OC's I've decided to mix in some old ones with some new ones, since Faybelle will be a major character in this story I've decided to keep my OC of her cousin Charlotte, and Raven's grandmother Elenore. I'm going to have several Royal OCs (maybe a cat with a fiddle or something) along with characters I didn't use much in my previous story.

I'm also going to try to pick up the pace with my writing style, make this fic go by quicker, it'll help (I think) that I'm unable to post past twenty-one pages (curse you ).

Also should I attempt to raise the rating on this to M or just keep things pg-14?

Be warned this whole thing is a writing experiment.

Let's see how this works out…

XXX

Her cousin's face was unreadable on the screen as she silently digested what Faybelle had just told her.

"So you're actually admitting that it took you seeing the girl naked before you actually believed her when she said that she doesn't want to become the Evil Queen?" Charlotte asked incredulously with a raised brow. "Personally that whole Legacy Day debacle would have convinced me no problem, but then again you were always the paranoid one."

"Charlotte." Faybelle groaned flopping on her back to her bed and slapping a hand over her eyes. "I'm asking for your help here."

Charlotte sighed. "I know, I'm sorry but that was the first thing that popped into my head, I mean seriously? How do you keep getting yourself into these situations?"

"Dumb luck?" Faybelle suggested shrugging. "This is Ever After High, stranger things _have_ actually happened."

"Every time you describe anything interesting happening at your school you make it seem like they've been running a nut house over there. The most exciting thing that I've had to talk about in the past three months here at Hathor Witch Academy is… that one incident where three first-years in broomriding class lost control, two got tangled up in the trees and one landed on my bed through the open window." Charlotte recalled with a shake of her head. "Why are you coming to me first anyway? Isn't the serious stuff usually dealt with by our mothers?"

"For one, you know just as well as I do that our mothers will want to take immediate action in order to both slight the Evil Queen and gain me the second title, but I had given Raven the honor of my word to keep things discreet, and in order to keep matters discrete I need legal options from an unbiased source… and since you are half witch, half fairy… and currently residing at Hathor Witch Academy where they have all of those legal books…"

Charlotte raised a brow but nodded. "Am I allowed to have some discrete help from one of my fellow witches who are actually _in_ the legal track or do I have to come up with an excuse as to why I am lurking around that section of the library?"

Faybelle waived in acceptance to her cousin's concerns. "I've seen you charm the literal skirt off of some uptight maidens when we were kids, remember that one time on mirror beach when those girls were horrified that we dared wear bathing suits without a skirt to cover our bare legs and by the time you were done with them they were wearing way less than we were?" The fairy snickered at the memory.

Charlotte smirked. "Before I get to work on a few of my… acquaintances, is there anything else that you'd like to talk about?" The witch asked, knowing that there was something else, when her cousin was in such serious moods there was almost always something else.

"What…" Faybelle bit her lip, taking the rare luxury of showing helpless confusion (a weakness that she would not dare show to anyone save a select few) in front of her cousin. "What should I do about Raven in the meantime? I mean… she's not our family nemesis anymore and… and after the scandal she caused today, I'm a… little nervous that someone might happen upon her and… well who knows what might happen! What if one of the Royals or the Headmaster manages to convince her to keep her title?"

"I hardly doubt that will happen after everything she's already gone through but if your so worried why don't you let her bunk with you for the weekend? At least you'll always know where she is and you might as well get used to her being around until we've got this all sorted." Charlotte sighed at the scandalous look that crossed her cousin's face. "Or you could always leave her at the mercy of her determined, soon-to-be-former, princess and hope for the best…"

"The things I do for family honor." Faybelle grumbled squinting up at her ceiling; she wondered how Raven would react when she told the witch that the reason why there were so many sprinklers over her bed because Faybelle had the teeny tiny habit of conjuring fire and lightning while she slept…

Charlotte blinked at the easy acceptance to her suggestion. "You gave in unusually quick."

"You've never met Apple White, for a supposedly meek maiden she was immensely ticked off that Raven had never shown up for the competition. Last I saw of her after dinner she had gotten even more worked up than before because no one had seen Raven since classes ended. Briar was worried that she'll do something drastic if Raven doesn't show up by morning." Faybelle admitted a little nervously, when Briar got worried over Apple White going too far it tended to be something serious.

"I thought you said that Raven told her that she didn't want to be apart of the competition. Why is she acting so surprised that her roommate is trying to hide from the whole thing? I'd hide too if I were in her shoes." Charlotte admitted, utterly confused over this particular princess's motives, it certainly didn't sound like an effective technique to persuade someone into a destiny they didn't want.

"I'll admit that is some pretty strange behavior for someone like Apple White who I know is smart enough to be taking most of the advanced classes offered here… I'll ask Raven if she knows anything about Apple's motivations in the morning." Faybelle mumbled tiredly. "Have pleasant night-classes cousin."

"And you have some restful nightmares cousin." Charlotte bid Faybelle good night before hanging up.

Faybelle stared blankly at the screen of her phone for a moment, before flicking through her documents and selecting one of the reports Raven had given her to reread for the third time.

 _The identity of the witchling rescued from the Evil Queen's laboratory was her own loomed daughter Raven Queen, after Elenore Queen, the witchling's grandmother had managed to call for help alerting authorities to the scene. It_ _appeared that the Evil Queen had been using her daughter's blood as a base ingredient in creating an experimental curse…_

XXX

"She hasn't come back yet." Apple paced Raven's side of their dorm agitatedly.

"She's probably staying the night in someone else's dorm, I'm sure she's fine." Ashlynn spoke soothingly as she sat daintily on Apple's bed.

"I don't understand it!" Apple exclaimed touching her fingers to her forehead. "Why is she being so stubborn about this? I just wanted us to spend the weekend having quality frienemy time and she just up and disappears without a trace!"

"Well Apple, you can't completely lay all the blame on Raven's shoulders, she did tell you that she didn't want anything to do with the villain stuff. I told you that signing her up for that competition without her permission was a bad idea." Briar scolded, her arms folded tightly around her chest.

"But that was supposed to be a surprise! I wanted to show Raven that being Evil could be fun! How could she have found out about it so quickly?" Apple questioned, working herself up even more.

Briar sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "About that… Rosabella mentioned that during their music class the Headmaster had called Raven down to his office… I'm pretty sure he's the one that told her."

Apple made a pinched face, closing her eyes as if physically pained. "Of course he did…"

Briar and Ashlynn shared a look, Ashlynn motioned to Briar who shook her head and gestured encouragingly to Ashlynn, finally the two of them had a silent rock, paper, and scissors contest, Briar winning with scissors.

"Listen Apple…" Ashlynn began nervously. "I know that you just want Raven to drop this whole Rebel business so that your life can get back on track… but _we_ think that maybe you went a little too far this time trying to convince her."

Apple's eyes snapped open. "What do you mean?" She asked sounding slightly hurt that her friends weren't on her side this time.

"We think that you spooked her with that little stunt of yours." Briar informed unapologetically, her cool stare dared the blonde princess to call them out for being truthful. "I mean first you try to trick her into doing something she really doesn't want to do and then because of your actions she's being put on the spot once again. Come on, you can't deny that Raven is a pretty private individual normally, she only lets herself be center stage when she absolutely has to."

Apple bit her lip, looking between the two.

"I just… I'd like it if she'd at least try being evil for a little bit. I know that she, like all the Rebels, have to come around to see things the Royal way eventually so she needs to keep practice." She confessed. "I mean it's not like it'd hurt her to try her hand at it every once in a while."

Ashlynn grimaced not missing the slight towards not only Raven but also herself for being a Rebel, looking for a better life after high school.

"Actually…" Ashlynn began with thinned lips. "I think that it hurts her more that you'd like to admit, earlier today I saw her try to walk past a group of freshman Royals in the hall at lunch break, they all pointed at her and screamed, calling her a monster and a bunch of other really mean things. Raven looked just about ready to cry when she ran outside."

Apple hesitated. "Evil Queens shouldn't get hurt feelings over stuff like that." She said not able to meet Ashlynn's eye.

"The same Evil Queen who tried to genocide entire worlds? The one who Raven has been trying to distance herself from out of sheer self preservation?" Briar asked dryly. "I know that you're hoping that Raven can prove to the worlds that she's earned the right to live a good life _with_ the title of Evil Queen by fulfilling _your_ destiny to become Snow White but it's way more difficult than that and you know it. Maybe if you stopped to actually talk to her about it, help her figure out solutions she would stop running away from you."

This time Apple looked down, thoroughly scolded.

"I don't think that I'm the one Raven's afraid of, but I will try to talk to her next time I see her." Apple promised. "She should be back sometime tomorrow, it's not like she can avoid trying to sneak herself some food, and she's not going to do something as drastic as to hide for the entire weekend."

XXX

Raven looked over her food rations for the weekend with a hum of surprised satisfaction; she had squirreled away more than enough food to survive the next two days. She mentally patted herself on the back for being so prepared to hide out for such an extended period of time.

"Raven?" Faybelle's voice called out. "I'm alone, you can come out of hiding now."

The fairy rolled her eyes when Raven tentatively peeked over a row of lockers towards the direction that Faybelle's voice had come from.

"If Apple gives me grief over my taking away the title of Evil Queen I'm going to tell her about this moment." Faybelle grumbled as Raven behaved like a startled small animal as she cautiously stepped out from the plushy carpeted areas between the lockers and benches onto the heated wooden floor.

"It is possible then?" Raven asked hopeful as she walked barefoot to Faybelle. "You can free me of that destiny?"

"'Course I can." Faybelle sniffed. "It's practically going to be over and done with come Monday now that you've given me cause and your permission, the only thing that needs to be done is to go about figuring out how to do this in a way so that nobody can oppose it."

"I'm almost free." Raven whispered tears springing to her eyes. "I can't believe it, I don't have to do it, I can escape!" The deeply moved witch covered her mouth with both hands.

Faybelle's eyes widened. "Hey, hey, hey, don't go all emotional on me." She ordered waiving her hands frantically. "I need you to keep it together so that I can sneak you into my dorm for the weekend."

Raven blinked. "Why do you want me to go there?"

"I'm keeping my future investment safe." Faybelle told her. "You didn't come back to your dorm last night and missed another round of competition, Apple's hacked, and so are a lot of villains by the way, the Headmaster's rigged the entire competition so no matter what you do, you will be the one who wins, I'm afraid that sooner or later there'll be a witch hunt for you."

Raven whimpered, actually whimpered, and then looked to the ground as if she felt _guilty_ , Faybelle couldn't believe her eyes.

"I've made Apple worried, maybe I should send her a message telling her that I'm all right." The witch wondered fidgeting worriedly.

"You will do no such thing!" Faybelle commanded in a no-nonsense tone. "She knows perfectly well why you're hiding, let her lay in the bed that she's made for herself and don't let her make you feel guilty over it."

"But what if she thinks that I'm hurt, or worse?" Raven asked. "I'd never be able to forgive myself if I worried her like that."

Faybelle rolled her eyes, just how naïve was this girl? "She's more concerned that you aren't following your destiny, trust me, by the time Monday comes the only thing she'll be yelling at you for is that you refused to be her evil little pet for the weekend."

Raven thought for a moment but then shook her head. "Fine, I'll keep radio silence, but I'll have you know that Apple cares about me way more than just my role in her fairytale, when she gets onto me about how worried she was I'm blaming you entirely." The witch sniffed as if getting blamed for a minor evil was supposed to make Faybelle think twice about keeping Raven's whereabouts a secret.

The fairy bit back a laugh, how adorable; she had met mosquitoes with more evil bite than what was apparently in Raven.

And yet at the same time it was oddly… maiden-like of the witch to be acting so freaking noble towards Apple even while she was hiding from the princess… it was almost like their roles had switched slightly, Raven was the gentle maiden in hiding and Apple was… well not evil, but she was acting pretty meanly for a supposed future Snow White, what with this scheme to turn Raven evil.

"Are you sure you aren't actually a maiden?" Faybelle snorted down a snicker. "You're sure acting like one."

"What?" Raven asked innocently, the comment going over her head.

Faybelle sighed. "Never mind. Go pack up your stuff and get ready to leave."

"How are we going to get all the way to your dorm without being seen?" Raven asked. "I had trouble the first time around and that was when they _weren't_ looking for me."

"I have a plan." Faybelle assured taking out a glass potion bottle. "Since the villain competition is obviously rigged you are going to help me try to win a different one, there's a pet competition in an hour and you are going to take this beast-transforming potion and win me something."

Raven's eyes looked like they were going to pop out. "What?" She squeaked.

"Oh, yeah, you'd better try to go to the bathroom first, your going to be an animal for the next two to three hours and I'm not changing you back until the competition is over and we are safely in my dorm." Faybelle declared, hands on her hips.

"But-" Raven tried to argue.

"Or I could always leave you here…"

"Going! Going!" Raven said as she headed for the bathroom stalls.

XXX

"It figures that you'd turn out to be two different animals put into one." Faybelle sighed as she set her fuzzy bundle onto her bed and moved away in order to set Raven's duffel bag in the empty closet that was dutifully reserved for a roommate who had not made it out of Wonderland in time before it was poisoned. "A cat with furry bird wings… is there _any_ part of you that does things the simple way?" The fairy grouched.

"Hey Faybelle? Do your mirrors have privacy spells on them?" Cat-Raven asked (the beast-potion did not take away the ability to talk in tongues that others would understand) worriedly as she stared at her reflection in the mirror situated across Faybelle's bed.

"That's an odd question." The fairy observed eyeing the black and white shorthaired cat suspiciously. "Why do you ask?"

Raven shifted awkwardly on her paws, nearly tipping over when her wings suddenly wrapped around her unconsciously. "It's… probably just me being paranoid but… for a couple of months now, ever since Legacy Day, I swear I sensed my mother's magic _through_ the mirrors of the school, and _I know_ that somebody's been watching me… my magic can sense _that_ pretty clearly so there's no question. I had first tried to brush it off as me getting more attention than I was used to… but then I started seeing her in the corner of my vision whenever I passed one. So I've been putting privacy spells on all the mirrors I can get away with, it's been working, but whether I'm just being paranoid or if my mother _actually is_ watching me is-"

"What's the spell you've been using?" Faybelle asked walking brusquely to her mirror.

"You believe me?" Raven asked surprised. "When I told Apple she acted like I was losing my mind."

"Apple White may like to pretend that the current Evil Queen wasn't as freakishly crazy or dishonorable in her career but I like to be practical about things, especially when those things have the potential power to kill me. There is nothing in the worlds more precise than witch's intuition, if you felt her watching, most likely she is." Faybelle snapped drawing up her power. "Do you sense her now?"

"No, but I had spelled all of the mirrors in the locker room long before you came in." Raven admitted shivering a little.

"We have plenty of time before the competition starts. Now give me that spell." The fairy demanded urgently.

Raven apparently hadn't been kidding when she had been stressing for being quiet about their little deal, there really was a viable dangerous threat out there.

XXX

Apple walked across the campus lawn, dejectedly holding Raven's latest trophy from the villain competition, the Headmaster had given it to Apple so that she could give it to Raven and perhaps find a way to convince Raven to reappear, if not to finish the competition, then to get her to come to the awards dinner where there was a seat waiting for her.

She didn't mind being asked to present the trophies to Raven; she _did_ mind that Raven wasn't anywhere to be found to present the trophies to. Apple couldn't even connect through to Raven on her phone; the witch had turned it off and wasn't taking any of her calls or responding to hexts!

"Hey shouldn't an actual villain be holding those?" Faybelle drawled, snapping Apple out of her thoughts. "Unless of course you're thinking about changing careers, then I suppose you might have more right, but still, terrorizing your witch-turned-maiden roommate to go into hiding is pretty mediocre for an evil-doer."

Apple turned to the fairy with a glare; Faybelle was standing next to a low table with an empty decorated blue box and a pet carrier sitting on it, her phone in her hand as she idly swiped her fingers over it. "This is Raven's trophy! I'm going to give it to her once she turns up!" The princess declared heatedly.

"A trophy she obviously doesn't want, and a trophy that had not been obtained by honorable means." Faybelle pointed out dryly. "C'mon princess, leave the witch alone, she obviously doesn't want to play your little fairytale games, so why don't you accept that she's not going to willingly become your exotic pet and get a _real_ villain to take her role."

The fairy watched in complete fascination as Apple's whole body seemed to bristle, her mouth bared her (perfectly white and strait) teeth like a feral animal, her eyes were as hard as the clearest blue diamonds Faybelle had ever seen. It was so completely un-princess-like that Faybelle half thought she was hallucinating.

Quickly, the fairy took a picture, tuning out Apple's response as she saved it as her wallpaper; it would become one of her most prized possessions, proof that there was something that actually got under the princess's skin.

Faybelle tuned her attention back to Apple's furious ranting.

"-And what do you know about Raven anyway? Huh? You don't know even a little bit! But I know that somewhere under all her stubbornness she's a true Evil Queen!" The princess declared in a way as if stating she knew the word of the gods through the messages they sent her through her alphabet cereal.

Faybelle looked down at her phone bringing up one of the reports that Raven had given her, her attention drawn to the pictures investigators had taken of Raven's wounds. "I highly doubt that, seeing as how all of the evidence points to the opposite of your assumptions about Raven. In fact… I'd hazard to say that she's more suited for the role of a maiden, not some princess's evil little fairytale toy."

"Come off it Faybelle you don't know anything, and aren't you usually one of the ones who openly dislike Raven and her Rebel cause? What changed? Are you turning Rebel on us?" The princess accused (in a stupidly arrogant manner), it seemed like Faybelle was going to have to make a certain princess cry today.

"Hardly." Faybelle snorted as if unaffected by the jibe. "But if you are so in question of my loyalties to my family's honorable title then why don't you ask Raven if I'm exhibiting any Rebel behavior. Oh yeah… you can't, because you've scared her so badly with your uncharacteristic manipulative little stunt that she's taken to hiding from you." The fairy said, giving the other blonde a flat look.

Apple White actually snarled, Faybelle hadn't ever thought that was even physically possible for the princess.

Faybelle exited out of the file with the pictures of an injured little teary-eyed witchling and put her fists on her hips as she stared Apple down. "Here's the thing princess; Raven's recent actions have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that she's not true villain material, she's too nice to people who constantly point out that she's related to a dishonorable slug, she'd rather hide from this whole mess you put her in rather than do the proper thing and tell you where to get off, and on that note she's been far too tolerant of your pathetic attempts to turn her into some sort of evil pet." Faybelle curled her lip in disgust because the mere thought of going around saying that she and Briar were the best of frienemies ever after, and have maiden-villain "bonding time" was more than enough to make her stomach roil. At least Briar had more respect for Faybelle than that.

"Maybe you should leave her be and just find someone else to fill her role." The fairy suggested. "She's already living under a dishonored and hated name so why don't you do the perfect maiden thing and let her find a way out of the title of Evil Queen so that she can gain back her honor. I can't believe I'm saying this in her defense but this whole Rebel thing might be just what she needs to escape her dishonorable mother's shadow, it would be just too pathetic if _she_ did try to become the Evil Queen and restore the honor her family used to have."

"Raven's got more honor in her little toe than you could ever hope of having!" Apple roared making Faybelle jump. "She's the perfect person to become my villain, and just because your relationship with Briar is different than my relationship with Raven doesn't mean that it's wrong or pathetic, it's special to us and just how we are with each other!"

Apple glared at Faybelle as she calmed herself down. "I care about Raven, I'm worried about her future as well as mine, that's why I'm trying so hard to get her to see that if she puts her mind to it, she can become the perfect Evil Queen, a perfect storybook villain, not a dishonorable monster. And she didn't go into hiding because she's scared of me, Evil Queens aren't afraid of anything!"

Faybelle and the crowd that had gathered around to watch their argument fell into contemplative silence.

"Well I'll be." Faybelle said tilting her head to the side. Perhaps the princess really did care about Raven in her own, twisted way. "You really are more than just a pretty face princess."

Apple opened her mouth to argue some more but was cut off when the speakers announced that the judges had decided who won the prizes for the pet competition.

"Well as fun as this was, I'd better head over before Cedar get's credit for my pet's prize." Faybelle said as she started to walk away.

"What?" Apple asked.

"I didn't feel like being all smiles at the judges, so I hired Cedar to do that job for me while she watches over my pet. Not the evilest thing I've ever done but it's definitely underhanded don't you think?" Faybelle said as she smirked over her shoulder.


	3. Chapter 3

A/n: So I've been watching a lot of British TV shows lately and I've discovered some useful research information for this fic…

Did you know that in olden times the greedy royalty was able to quiet revolts from the oppressed people by spreading the superstitious rumor that the land would die if the monarchy were overthrown? There is whole concept of being better than others just because of their blood, and that how only certain noble jobs can be accomplished by people of a certain heritage! This is useful information to me because it helps me get ideas on how to write about the Royals and their beliefs. I suspect that if this were a more in-depth older person show and not a kid's show they'd be showing Royal values similar to the British class system.

It makes more sense for Apple to be so tied up about everyone following their inherited duties if she had this class-is-everything-good-in-life mentality (only in a nicer way than what is mostly depicted of the British aristocracy), other ways of doing things is completely foreign to her, she has so much faith in the system and in the looming threat of disappearing completely.

It's really stressful and terrifying to her for the whole Rebel thing to exist, and she is only human (and I mean that in a- she's not an all round flawless princess god or something- sense) so after a very stressful week she'd be more likely to do something rash to save her worldview.

I haven't gotten that far yet but I can tell it's going to be an interesting thing to write about what happens when she finds out that it's all been one big lie… maybe for this fic I'll have the whole reason for the Book of Legends to exist be about something frivolous like the ancestors attempting to uphold their power over the people and over the generations it got out of hand.

And Faybelle seems like the manipulative type, it would be just like her to keep riling Apple up just to see how much of a threat she is to her goals (since Apple has a lot of influence on Raven's day-to-day life) this could play into Apple's reaction to when she finds out everything she believes in has been a lie.

But I'm not that far yet so we'll just have to see.

XXX

"Cutest unusual pet?" Raven muttered darkly as she looked at her first place prize ribbon in her (non-animal) hand. "That wasn't even listed as a prize! And I wasn't nearly as unusual as some of those real pets…" The witch continued to mutter under her breath as she sat on Faybelle's bed.

Faybelle smirked looking up from reading the books on witch and fairy law she had checked out of the library earlier that morning, to glance up to her note board and at the two pinned coupons she had been given as her reward for winning the competition. One was a week of free meals at one of the fancier restaurants in the village and the other was a voucher to get twenty percent off of animal food for an entire year at a local supplier (she intended to give the latter to Rosabella in exchange for a future favor).

"What were you fighting about with Apple?" Raven asked out of the blue.

"Hmm?" Faybelle hummed not turning around. "I was taking pity on you, those reports you gave me made me more spiteful than usual."

"How so? From the judging stage I could see you and her in the center of a crowed, she looked really angry." Raven commented uneasily.

"I told her that it wasn't honorable for her to condone letting them give you prizes you don't want, for a competition you never signed up for." Faybelle told the witch easily. "She didn't like that much, she's under the impression that she can bribe you or trick you into becoming the perfect evil little pet she had always wanted you to be."

Faybelle heard Raven sigh heavily. "Did… was she worried about me?"

"All I heard was her ranting on about your supposed destiny as her villain." Faybelle said honestly, the fairy could practically feel the witch slump in disappointment. It was odd; she would've thought that Raven would be more… protesting to Faybelle making Apple out to be a control freak (and the princess was a control freak in the fairy's opinion) that was treating Raven like some sort of exotic pet.

"Why are you so concerned about how she feels about you, or about the things she wants, even after all the grief she's given you?" Faybelle asked with a shake of her head as she twisted around to look at the witch. "You almost sound like you're in love with her or something."

Raven blushed looking down.

"Ah." Faybelle said with a grimace. "That would explain a few things… don't you do _anything_ the easy way?"

"I try but it doesn't always work out that way." The witch shrugged sadly still looking down.

"Hey Raven, do you suppose the Headmaster would let me win back all of the trophies for the villain contest if I said that I had turned you into a cat for the weekend?" Faybelle mused, partially to distract her from the melancholy air the witch was giving off.

"Probably not." Raven shook her head. "When he saw my name on the sign up sheet he had gotten so excited that he called me into his office to congratulate me. I think I hurt his feelings when I told him that I never signed up for anything and that I didn't want to participate."

"What a big baby." Faybelle sneered, now admitting to herself that Raven going into hiding wasn't as much as a cowardly thing to have done. "I'm pretty sure he just broke a bunch of his own rules by not letting you drop out and staging the competition."

Raven rolled her eyes in agreement. "He's really determined to make me out to be the unsporting bad guy and I don't want you to get into trouble too, not when you are freeing me of my title… and being so helpful with hiding me from the competition."

"Don't worry so much about me." Faybelle sniffed. "It doesn't matter if I get into trouble, as long we can do this in a way that makes you look like the helpless maiden who made a deal to save herself from winning a prize dishonorably, and I turn out looking like a proper Evil Fairy _and_ Evil Queen. Think of it as propaganda, if people put my worth for obtaining both titles into question then all I have to do is refer to this competition to get them to shut up."

Raven hesitated. "Well I guess if you think that it's for your best interests in the long run…"

Faybelle's phone chimed indicating a call.

"That should be my cousin, the one I told you about? With news on whether or not we can do this quietly." Faybelle informed picking up her phone.

Raven got off the bed to peer over Faybelle's shoulder.

Charlotte's grey eyes blinked at the sight before her. "Greeting's cousin, and cousin's lovely guest." The platinum blonde witch smirked in amusement at the two.

Faybelle rolled her eyes. "Charlotte meet Raven, Raven meet my cousin Charlotte, now can we get down to business?" The fairy waived her hand impatiently.

"Eager are we?" Charlotte teased her darkly tanned hands reaching for something off screen before coming back with a heavy book and a mirrorpad. "You're lucky that there's an entire shelf devoted to the laws of titles and more than a few helpful books devoted solely to the transfer of them." The witch commented.

"So you were able to find something?" Faybelle asked leaning forward slightly.

"Quite a bit." Charlotte nodded. "But before I begin… Raven Queen, are you sure that you want to keep all of this under the radar for now?"

Raven cleared her throat nervously, her heart pounding in her chest. "Well the Headmaster here probably won't be too pleased with this and Apple, she's the future Snow White, would throw a fit if she knew I was even thinking about this. They'd both would try to put a stop to this before we even have a change to go through with it…" The witch paused before looking worriedly to the side, in the direction of Faybelle's mirror. "Plus there's the risk of my mother finding out…"

Charlotte stiffened, her attitude turning serious. "I thought that the Evil Queen had been imprisoned somewhere secret by Headmaster Grimm." The blonde witch stated her expression tight.

"Raven's been sensing the Evil Queen's presence watching her through the mirrors." Faybelle informed. "A simple privacy spell seems to be stopping it and we can't be sure that it _is_ the Evil Queen… but there is a definite possibility that someone is watching her."

"So we want to go with the super secret stealth option." Charlotte nodded opening the book in front of her and searching the table of contents.

"There are a few options… but not many of them might be possible for your situation… how do you two feel about an old fashioned magic duel? Only instead of fighting on equal ground Raven Queen throws it after a few minutes."

"There is no way anybody in the Royal faction here will accept that as legitimate." Raven shook her head. "Besides my magic doesn't always work right so it wouldn't be much of a show."

Charlotte looked up her brows furrowed. "Doesn't always work right? How do you mean? Like just generally or do you have trouble with spells and potions?"

"All of the above?" Raven shrugged helplessly. "Well it's mostly when I try to do something that wouldn't fit under evil spells or intentions, I try to… like say heat up a cup of coffee to a certain temperature with a worded spell, and instead of heating it up the liquid inside my mug sets itself on fire or the mug disintegrates, no matter how well I pronounce the words it always turns out badly. I've been told that it's because I'm supposed to be evil… so I don't use my magic all that often."

Charlotte shook her head. "I'd suggest that you no longer associate with those people who've been telling you that ridiculous lie." The witch told the other firmly. "In fact it's probably best that you steer clear of them all together because magic by itself doesn't have any preference for good or for evil, you power up, speak your spell, and your magic should weave itself to work to your intentions."

"How long has this been going on?" Faybelle asks Raven from over her shoulder.

Raven scratches her head. "Sometime after… Wonderland was poisoned…?" the witch bites her lip.

"Kingdoms." Faybelle swore. "That long? And no one thought to bring you to a healer? What were you raised by humans or something?" The fairy spat.

"They did the best they could raising me." Raven defended tightly. "But there were a lot of threats on my life so they kept me hidden."

Faybelle rubbed her temples. "Right. On Monday morning you had better report to the Healer's office, ask for Phalange, she has the personality of a lizard but at least she cares more about the student's health opposed to the Royal-Rebel conflict."

Raven nodded reluctantly, feeling a little… she wasn't sure how to feel, surely if there was something obviously wrong with her magic somebody would have clued in to it… unless nobody noticed? Or didn't believe her when she said it was an accident?

But why not tell her or confront her about it?

"Cousin, is there anything in that book that will help us transfer the title and stop all outside opposition from legally being able to stop it?" Faybelle nearly begged, the more she found out about Raven Queen's past and current situations the more alarmed she became at the sheer amount of people willing to go great lengths to ensure that the witch was used for their own agendas.

Faybelle _needed_ to be the one with the agenda that won over all the others, to gain the title of Evil Queen and restore her mother's honor. Whether or not she was aiding an outsider to her family was of little professional consequence, though sticking one to the Evil Queen through her own daughter, by helping Raven break free of her destiny… that was going to be a revenge sweeter than a nectar from the gods.

Now that her goal was in her sights Faybelle was willing to do _anything_ to succeed, and she suspected that Raven felt the same, giving the fairy a leg up over the others.

Charlotte visibly hesitated.

"Come on Charlotte, out with it." Faybelle prompted. "I highly doubt that whatever you've found will be enough to completely shock us into a faint."

"What if I told you that she'd have to become your blushing bride cousin dear?" Charlotte asked primly clearing her throat.

Faybelle and Raven stared at the witch on the phone's screen for what seemed like an eternity.

"What?" Raven asked her voice two or three octaves higher than normal.

"Well…" Faybelle licks her lips. "At least it isn't an exchanging of a blood sacrifice, or something involving one of those ancient stone burial mounds."

"What?" Raven asks again panic rising.

"I've heard about some real freaky dinky things that happen in one of those burial mounds." Faybelle shrugged. "While I'm not hexactly happy… it is a far better option than what I had feared it would be…"

"Your _okay_ with this?" Raven asks outraged.

"Would you rather strip down, cover your entire self with the ashes of the dearly departed, paint magic symbols on your naked body with animal blood, and then spend three days and three nights in a drug induced haze inside a damp hollow mound of stacked rocks and grassy dirt filled with the skeletons of the ancestors, doing who knows what with each other?" Faybelle asks as she turns to the witch beside her. "And that's not even the weirdest part of the full ritual."

"Actually that exact same ritual does legally apply." Charlotte commented. "The only thing is that the drugs that used to be used is kinda totally illegal now and as a necessity for your protection and verification that the ritual happened you will have to be monitored, meaning that there will be a video file out their of the two of you doing things that you probably would prefer no one knew had happened."

"I need to sit down." Raven declared moving to the bed.

"Perhaps I spoke too soon about the fainting thing…" Faybelle admitted as she watched Raven flop down onto her mattress.

"It'll only be a token marriage, after the fairytale stories have finished you two can either go your separate ways or, if you become so inclined, can stay married if you decide to stay together." Charlotte assured. "But there are some extra rituals that the both of you will have to go through. Nothing as dramatic as a wild night in a bone-filled tomb, the most that will happen is that Raven Queen will have to chop off a decent amount of her hair and wear our family's crest for all to see… unless she's allergic to the plants used to make the special henna tattoo paste used for extended ceremonies."

"Magical henna tattoo paste?" Raven asked faintly.

"It won't be permanent, it's just a skin stain that'll be spelled to last the duration of your marriage." The other witch assured.

"Perhaps you should walk us through from the beginning." Faybelle suggested.

Charlotte nodded flipping a page and leaning forward to read, a tan finger moving down the rows of letters as she read. "It's a ritual designed to forgive a family name of their dishonor, the stipulation being that they must give up their title to an outside honorable family through token marriage. It takes about six rituals to complete which makes it perfect for you because they can extend the time between each ritual if needed, and as long as you can get away with wearing long sleeves and gloves, no one will really suspect that anything is up until the last two of the rituals, by that time it would be very difficult for anybody from the outside to stop the completion of the marriage through the sixth ritual."

Charlotte leaned to the side in order to pick out a smaller book, opening it and turning it over so that her audience could see diagrams of where the henna designs would go.

"As you can see, nearly the entire body of the bride will become covered by the end of it all, but the designs done to the neck, hands, and face will be the last to be done in the final three rituals. Designs leading from the arms to the shoulders will be first, then legs to up along her sides, the back and front, that will be the point where her hair needs to be cut and full rights to the title will have successfully been transferred, but to restore Raven's honor she will then have her hands done, followed by her neck, and part of her face, then finally the final detailing will be done on her face and all over her body in the traditional symbols of the family she's married into." Charlotte explained pointing areas out as she went.

"Just me getting the tattoos?" Raven sighed, sounding nearly defeated. "Not Faybelle?"

"Faybelle's hands and feet will be done up the first two rituals, the rest of the time she will be helping preform the ceremonies as your official spouse and Lady laying her claim on you." Charlotte explained.

Raven lay back on the bed and took calming deep breaths. "Just a token marriage right? Afterword I can leave with my newly restored honor if I want with no strings attached?"

"Yes." Charlotte nodded even though only Faybelle could see her at the moment.

"And there is no other decent option?" Faybelle asked.

"Not unless you want to run the risk of someone being able to legally oppose you." The fairy's cousin shook her head.

"Raven bride of the Thorns… sounds downright medieval." Faybelle muttered as they all lapsed into silence.

After a very long while Raven stirred, turning to lay on her side in the fetal position as she eyed Faybelle. "I'm out of options…" She whispered.

The fairy met her gaze, an unspoken mutual understanding passed between them. "Yes you are." Faybelle agreed.

"It is possible for me to fight this by being a Rebel but… I can't pass this up… without this there is no guarantee…" Raven trailed off.

"As if Apple or the Headmaster wouldn't panic and do something drastic as graduation nears." Faybelle snorted.

"…And you want the title, would be a far better Evil Queen than I ever would." Raven pointed a finger at Faybelle.

"Starting with the endearing flattery already I see." The fairy grinned, all sharp teeth and a primal gleam in her eye.

Raven ignored her despite the fairy reminding her with that expression that Faybelle's species of fairy had descended from a carnivorous variety, and had once looked far less humanoid and much more like a two legged creature that was all wings, claws, and teeth.

"And Apple… she can have a concrete assurance for a happily ever after." Raven swallowed closing her eyes. "Once all is said and done… she won't be worrying herself sick trying to get me to become anything, she can be certain that she won't disappear, she can breathe easier."

Faybelle regarded the witch for a moment, mind working. "You think that once I have your title she won't be worried about you disappearing anymore?" Faybelle asked carefully, trying to feel out the meaning behind the witch's words and wondering if it would become necessary for her to begin putting a figurative wedge between Raven and Apple, and whatever kind of relationship they already had.

Raven's half lidded eyed gazed at the floor.

"…Sometimes I wonder… if I wasn't born to be destined for the title of Evil Queen… would… would she have bothered with me at all?" The witch confessed closing her eyes in resignation and turning over.

Faybelle took a deep breath through her nose. "Charlotte, could you please warn our mothers about this, give them all the information about Raven's past and the current problems we face, she and I will call them tonight around ten our time, six o'clock in the morning their time."

Charlotte nodded. "Good luck." The witch said before hanging up.

"I need to call Maddie, and my father." Raven sighed getting up to retrieve her phone from her kit and turning it on.

"…Oh dear…" Faybelle heard the witch whimper nervously over the sound of a nearly constant beeping.

"What?" The fairy asked turning to look at the witch, who was staring at her beeping phone in horror.

Raven handed her device over for the fairy to look at. "Can I… use your phone? Apple has… well I think I've made her mad… and with that many messages still coming in I don't think I can place any calls…"

" _Holy motherfucking sprites_!" Faybelle hissed. "You're gone just a night and a day and so she goes and… where does she find the time to send this _many_?" The fairy demands utterly appalled at the sheer amount of growing voice and hext messages displayed on Raven's phone. "She's going to kill it at this rate!"

Raven bit her lip. "Maybe I should-"

"No." Said Faybelle.

"But she must be really worried." Raven argued.

"And you can claim all innocence once we go through with my evil plan tomorrow." Faybelle told her serenely. "But if it'll make you feel better… if she doesn't stop once night falls then I'll send her a few hexts… alluding that you are still in the land of the living and you don't want to deal with being forced to being a part of a competition that has been unfairly fixed. Because I'm concerned that your obvious feelings for this princess will make you want to spill you whereabouts, and I can't have any outside interference until I've secured both you and your title."

Raven crosses her arms opening her mouth to say something but Faybelle waives her off. "I promise to be perfectly polite and sound positively maidenly… even though I'll be running the risk of my teeth rotting from all the sweetness." The fairy stuck out her tongue out as she handed Raven her own phone.

"I'm not _that_ far gone with my feelings for her." Raven grumbled looking down.

"Then look me in the eye when you say it and I'll believe you." Faybelle dared the witch sounding bored.

Raven looked her in the eye, swallowed nervously, and then looked down again.

"Maybe… I think I'm a masochist and I haven't realized it yet…" Raven muttered looking like she had just swallowed something sharp.

"The sooner you move on to better pastures, the sooner you'll get over her." Faybelle assured.

Raven let out a huff. " _Yes dear_." She said sarcastically as she began to dial.

XXX

"She's still not back." Apple growled as she sent Raven another hext. She was sitting cross-legged on Raven's bed while Ashlynn and Briar had retreated to Apple's bed across the room and a safe distance away from the increasingly agitated princess.

"She did hext you as much hours ago." Briar reminded tightly as she put on her sleeping mask and laid down on the apple red comforter. "She also told you that she was not going to accept any ill gotten trophies from a competition she never signed up for. And why are you continuing to try to get through to her phone when she said that she'll be back either Sunday evening or Monday?"

Apple stilled her fingers.

"I… I'm just trying to get her to stop acting so… so cowardly! This isn't proper behavior for a villain at all!" Apple whined in frustration. "And it's just not like her to ignore me like this!"

"Are you worried that something might… happen to her?" Ashlynn, who had been silent up till then, spoke. "Since she is acting unusual towards you?"

"Not at all." Apple stated coolly as she began typing again. "Evil Queens aren't afraid of anything, and if something does happen Raven would give in to her true evil nature and take care of the problem."

"So all of this is just because you want her to come back and enter the competition?" The shoe-loving princess asked sounding a little disappointed.

"If I can just get Raven to expose herself to something that'll draw out her inherited evil side she'll see the light and sign the Book and give me my happily ever after like she's supposed to." The blonde spoke determinately; her fellow princess's tone was lost on Apple. "Then this whole Rebel nonsense will dissolve and everyone can sign the Book! Just think about it; everything will be as it should be."

Ashlynn slumped her shoulders feeling hurt at not only her friend's words and lack of concern for Raven's safety but also at her blatant disregard for Ashlynn's own choices and beliefs.

"I just remembered something important that requires my attention. It might take a while so don't wait up for me." Ashlynn spoke, getting up and heading to the door.

"What's so important that you have to leave?" Apple asked not looking up from her phone.

The door opened and closed.

This made Apple look up. "Ashlynn?"

"Good job at being such a supportive friend." Briar said sarcastically. "I think that you just lost the last bit of faith she had in you. Truly this is the top of the cake for all you've done this weekend."

"What did I do?" Apple asked offended.

Briar sat up, ripping off her mask. "Where do I begin?" She asked incredulously. "First you sign Raven up for that competition without her permission, putting her on the spot with the Headmaster, then when Raven makes herself scarce so that she wouldn't have to deal with the mess _you_ put her in, instead of rectifying _your_ actions and try to convincing the Headmaster to just drop the issue _you_ openly support an obviously rigged competition by accepting rewards that Raven never should have won, and then _you_ try to organize a mob of Royals to go out and search for her and harass her via _your_ phone when she obviously just wants to be left _alone_!"

Briar inhaled casting Apple a glare. " _That_ was far too low for you, Now Raven's in trouble with the Headmaster, in trouble with your Royal followers, and now public enemy number one with a great deal of the villain population of the school! You don't think that people like Faybelle won't be going after Raven in retaliation? And then you keep going on about how perfect everything will be for you once Raven signs the Book and everything will go back into step with tradition in front of Ashlynn, who _doesn't want_ to become Cinderella."

"Over some boy!" Apple argues, a little feebly. "She's throwing her entire life away over some boy! If she becomes Cinderella then she can marry a prince, and with a prince she'll gain a kingdom! She and her family can finally close up their shop and live like proper royalty again!"

Briar shook her head. "You don't get it do you Apple? It's more than risking it all just for some boy, who's got a name by the way, Ashlynn _loves_ her current life, she _loves_ her family's shop, it's a shoe store for kingdoms sake! She loves shoes! And it's right next to the forest so when she isn't surrounding herself with shoes she can enjoy the great outdoors! Being free of kingdom duties means that she can live her life how she wants to, what she does on her own time is her own private affair since there's not a constant crowd of people following her around everyday and she doesn't have a bunch of royal responsibilities. She loves her life just the way it is! And so do her parents, and they _adore_ Hunter, they totally approve of him dating their daughter!"

Apple stared speechless; Briar could see the gears of her mind turning as she tried to process the brunet's words.

"She… likes being a princess without a kingdom?" Apple asked; the concept was foreign to her.

"Not every princess has the same royal goals desires as everybody else." Briar pointed out. "While you want to gain a title and a prince when you graduate Ashlynn just wants to run her family shop and live a simple village life. And a _real_ friend should be more supportive of her life decisions for the pursuit of her own version of a happily ever after."

Apple's walls of indignity crumbled, the princess setting down her phone and looking to the ground in shame.

"What has gotten into you girlfriend?" Briar asks completely mystified to her friend's recent actions.

"I thought that Raven would see the importance of going through with her destiny by now." Apple confessed. "But… she's not backing down, she wants nothing to do with her heritage, she's really set on escaping her destiny… she's been especially persistent about it all week and I… I _panicked_ okay? I'll admit signing her up without her permission was not one of my better moments, but then she disappears like I'd just sent the hounds after her and then Faybelle starts going on about me finding a different villain and how Raven is dishonorable… I just don't understand why she's doing all of this."

"Have you ever asked her?" Briar asks.

"Do her reasons matter? This is my story that's on the line here!" Apple demands tensely the words her tutors made her memorize at the front of her mind. "For the sake of everybody she needs to become the Evil Queen and I have to become Snow White!"

"Kinda yes…" Briar says slowly. "It kina matters a whole lot knowing exactly why becoming the Evil Queen would be so terrible for Raven. And Faybelle's right; you could always demand a new villain to take Raven's role."

"…But then Raven wouldn't be in my story, she was born specially made for me-… she was born to poison me. There cannot be any other way, we were all bred and raised for our roles and we must follow them." Apple shook her head, the words that had been drilled into her since she was a child flowing out as if they had been rehearsed hundreds of times (and they were, before the beginning of each new day of private tutoring Apple was made to speak the same monologue of why sticking to the script was so important).

Briar sighed. "Apple… Raven's a witch, she was raised differently than you, trust me on this; witches, fairies… _mages_ … they subscribe under a different value system and the most recent polls Blondie's conducted for her blog says that nearly ninety percent of magic-users don't believe that we'll disappear if we don't sign the Book, and what little percent does believe it to be so are under the impression that it'll be just the humans who'll disappear because they aren't born with the magic to protect them. In Raven's case it could very well be a combination to the overwhelming dishonorable shame her mother has disgraced her family name with, making her a pariah in her own witch's state as well as the other human kingdoms, and that belief that all the disappearing rumors the Headmaster's been spreading is just a tall tale designed to keep us in line." The dark-haired princess explained gently.

Apple was silent as she digested Briar's words.

"I need to apologize don't I?"

"Big time." Briar nodded. "But look on the bright side; at least Raven can't completely deny her destiny until graduation so you two have got plenty of time to sort something out."

XXX

Two sets of stoic eyes appraise Raven through Faybelle's full-length mirror; the witch in question is kneeling on the ground as a sign of humility and a silent cry for mercy; begging for help.

"We have reviewed and evaluated your request little witch, be grateful for we have decided to pity you and will help you restore your honor in exchange for my daughter to receive your title and take revenge on the Evil Queen by taking away the one thing she has taken great pride in; you." The current Evil Fairy says making Raven relax by fractions from her position on the floor.

"This Friday will be thronecoming, we will smuggle you out for the weekend during the dance to complete the first ritual, keep as quiet about this as possible and it should be obvious for you to be weary of mirrors. Do you understand us?"

"Yes honorable ones, I do." Raven's voice was clear, albeit a little muffled by her position.

"You may rise." The Evil Fairy's sister allowed.

Raven sat up on her knees, her face streaked with grateful tears as she peered up at the two taller fairies.

"Well Raven…" Faybelle drawled. "Welcome to the family. Now help us destroy our mutual enemy."


	4. Chapter 4

I never really understood the whole "who is more selfish" debate…

Raven has had to live with the stigma of having a genocidal mother and was pretty lonely for years before she decided to rebel…

And Apple has had to live with people questioning her birthright and making fun of her all because she doesn't fit the physical description of a Snow White.

And in the background, don't forget, that they've both have been repeatedly lied to about the realities of destinies.

Really didn't the both of them have at least a little bit of a right to be somewhat selfish?

I'm a little (a lot) disappointed that they didn't address this issue in the websodes, especially since this was such a main focus for so long. I mean it's not like kids wouldn't have some understanding about such issues… I identified immediately with Raven when I first saw this series because I had been treated like the demon spawn at my elementary school because, of all the stupid things to be ostracized for, I was proud of my mixed European heritage and was not ashamed that my grandparents had been immigrants.

It didn't matter that I was like, a _seven-year-old kid_ , because all that did matter was that I wasn't like all of the rest of the kids whose families had been in the area for over two hundred years or more, I didn't have the exact same religion as everyone else, I was (gasp) a _mixed_ breed (because apparently if you have an ancestry from several different countries that, is just sacrilegious), one of my parent's skin is darker (as in _tan_ , they were getting bent out of shape over _tan_ skin) than the other's, and most importantly of all; I wasn't rich. The school I went to was a small place where all the rich landowners sent their kids (why they let me in to this school in the first place I'll never know).

I had actually met quite a few Apple Whites at my old school, been friends with the few that didn't hate me, I couldn't believe the sheer amount of pressure a lot of them had been under to become the perfect model heirs, a lot of them had parents that were pushing them to make friends with kids that they didn't like so that they could arrange play dates and have an excuse to make alliances… or whatever it is that the upper crust of a secluded area do with each other. I'm basing this fic's Apple on an ex-friend of mine who had gone into a total freak out over trying to do right by his parents (it was very sad and ended badly).

Personally I can see both sides to Raven and Apple's personal dilemmas and while some may say that they are both totally selfish people… personally I can't fault either of them for trying to _defend themselves_ in their own individual ways.

XXX

Apple took a deep breath when she spied Ashlynn late Sunday afternoon sitting alone on a bench and feeding a group of birds some bread, the princess stiffening considerably when Apple moves to stand to the side of the bench.

Apple's guilt triple-folds at the sight of tight pain crossing her old friend's features.

"I've come to apologize, not continue on bashing your life like an ignorant jerk." Apple assured sadly. "Is this seat taken?" She asks motioning to the large stretch of empty seating next to Ashlynn.

"Take it, it's a free world." Ashlynn shrugged not looking at Apple.

Apple sat down carefully, her entire body slumping in shame. "I've been pretty un-fairest these past few days, I should've stopped and reminded myself that both you and Raven have your own feelings and motivations on this matter and I… should have respected that more… respected you both more.

Apple took a deep breath, apologizing wasn't something that she was used to doing, mostly because she tried her best to be the perfect good girl and make everybody have the impression that she had a right to be Snow White even though she had blonde hair and wore glasses (to read only and when no one was looking).

"I… last night Briar gave me a talking to… it made me realize that ever since you've declared yourself a Rebel I-I haven't been treating you the same as before… I keep hurting you in the same way I hurt you back before that true hearts dance… when I told you that I wasn't at all supportive of your life decisions." Apple whispered swallowing a bitter taste in her mouth. "I'm sorry for that… I'm sorry for putting my personal problems first and our friendship last."

"She's not leading us into danger." Ashlynn finally spoke up. "I know that children of Evil Queens aren't _supposed_ to be nice but… Raven is a really, really kind person. She doesn't let many people know what's going on inside her head, not that many people before Legacy Day were willing to get so close, but the ones she calls friends… she treats them like they're the salt of the earth for giving her the opportunity to prove that she is not her mother. Do you remember that perfume I got for my birthday? The one you kept borrowing because you loved the scent so much?"

Apple thought back. "Yeah, didn't Hunter get that for you along with a pair of new shoes?" The princess recalled (getting Ashlynn a gift was a pretty simple matter since the girl was utterly ecstatic about shoes).

"Well Hunter confessed to me that the bottle of perfume was actually a gift that Raven had made herself but she was so worried that because it wasn't poisoned or because it was from her I wouldn't like it, so she gave it to Hunter and asked him to take the credit." Ashlynn couldn't help but smile a little at the astonished look that crossed Apple's face.

"I thought that perfume smelled familiar." The blonde princess snapped her fingers. "Raven uses the same fragrance when she spritzes her ball gowns before going out to a dance or a formal function. She makes almost all of her own perfumes and soaps herself…" Apple looks away guiltily. "And… _sometimes_ … I might use some of her shampoo and conditioner for my hair…"

"Oh my, a hair care product that you support? How rare. I should ask Raven if she'd be willing to make _me_ some." Ashlynn teased. "You know… Holly and Poppy have been covertly trying to get me to tell them your secret of how you have recently been able to keep your hair so soft to the touch and yet not have any frizz."

"…How do they know what my hair feels like?" Apple asked a little weirded out.

"Ignorance is bliss honey… trust me." Ashlynn shrugged. "But my point is that you should really let up on demanding that Raven sign the Book, not when you don't know the reasons why she doesn't want to, while you're afraid that she'll disappear and that you won't be able to become _the_ Snow White like your mother… you have to remember what Raven's mother did, and… remember back in the first two years here, and farther back in primary school, after the Evil Queen struck and before Raven was homeschooled for so long? I think that Maddie was her only friend and the people that came from Wonderland were the only ones who had treated Raven… well they weren't afraid of her, and they didn't throw things at her or try to get her to play her mother in a game of pretend…" Ashlynn sent Apple a pointed look.

Apple bit her lip and looked down, it hadn't occurred to her before that Raven had been _that_ lonely.

Silence descended between the two.

"You don't want a kingdom… or a prince." Apple mused.

Ashlynn shook her head. "Nope."

"What's that like?" Apple asked a little desperately. "Not having to worry about what a court, or a prince, or what your parents think of you for… not being perfectly… up to snuff with tradition? Having no one- aside from me and I'm sorry about that- look down on you for being… different?"

"Pretty quiet for the most part." Ashlynn admitted. "I revel in the amount of privacy I've been blessed with, once… I took off my shoes and Hunter and I walked barefoot along a muddy creek bed… and to my surprise… no one we passed made one comment about the daughter of Cinderella walking barefoot. Not even one batted eye."

Apple's eyes widened. "What was that like?" She asked sounding jealous.

"Awesome." Ashlynn replied.

A confused murmur erupted from the crowd surrounding the temporary stage where the best villain contest was being held, distracting the two princesses.

"What's Faybelle doing holding up a… winged cat?" Ashlynn asked confused.

"Miss Thorn what are you doing?" The Headmaster asked appalled. "We're just about to award Miss Queen as the winner of this years contest."

Outraged cries and bitter grumbling met the man's words. Making the cat in Faybelle's arms wither and try to hide its head into the fairy's shoulder

"But I'm here to prove that Raven doesn't deserve those trophies." Faybelle countered calmly.

The Headmaster nervously adjusted his collar. "I'm sorry Miss Thorn but Miss Queen's actions have proven that she is indeed the evilest, who else would sign up for a competition and not attend?" The man tried to sound convincing.

Faybelle grinned holding the cat, which was now glaring spitefully at the Headmaster, up to the microphone.

"For the last time, I wasn't the one who put my name on that sign up sheet and I never wanted anything to do with this competition in the first place!" Raven's voice growled out from the cat's mouth, shocking the area into silence.

Apple's eyes widened. "What…?"

"She was looking for a way out of the competition, so desperate was she that she was willing to strike a deal with an evil fairy, so I made her my pet for the weekend." Faybelle declared smugly her eyes glowing menacingly as she scanned the crowd.

While Faybelle's fellow villains clapped approvingly the crowed below was a mix of disbelief (Royals mostly) and outrage (Rebels).

The Headmaster sputtered while Raven gave him one last hiss for good measure.

Apple raced to the stage.

XXX

"I can't believe her!" Apple growled furiously, protectively cradling Raven's tiny fuzzy form to her as she walked back to their dorm.

"Well I was a willing participant…" Raven admitted guiltily.

"She still shoudn't've turned you into her pet!" Apple argued holding Raven a little closer. "And then to forbid you from getting a hold of me… ooh she looked so smug when she told me she answered for you…"

"She didn't want to risk me telling you where I was." Raven told her. "And she let me approve the messages she did write to you so… don't be too mad ok?"

The princess looked down at Raven guiltily. "I am so sorry Raven, I wasn't thinking when I signed you up for that competition, here we could've been having a nice time enjoying the festivities together and I just had to go and try to make you do something you didn't want to… I'm so sorry."

Raven was silent for a moment. "You were scared right? That you wouldn't get your happy ending? It's ok to be scared about the future sometimes… but Apple, you have to understand that I'm not going to just leave you without a happy ending, I'm not going to become the Evil Queen, but I am going to help you have a happily ever after."

Apple was silent for a while, absently running her fingers over Raven's furry wings.

"But I want you to be apart of my story… my happily ever after." The princess confessed sounding small.

Raven winced looking down, the place where the lawn met the warm sidewalk blurring as they moved, in the distance the witch caught a glimpse of Cerise looking around, maybe she was looking for Briar, Raven made a mental note to find the time to sit down with her fellow Rebel and talk about how well Briar and the hooded girl's super secret sort-of relationship was going. "I'm sorry Apple but… even if I were to sign the Book… the reality is that my family's dishonor would eventually drive me into hiding, I'd never be able to see you again after your story was finished. I'd have to disappear and let some other family takeover my title the next time around."

Apple stopped in her tracks; Raven felt the warmth of the sun overpowering the cool breeze across her dark furred back.

"Why?" Apple asked sounding heartbroken. "You aren't your mother so why would this dishonor thing that everybody keeps mentioning make you give up everything?"

Raven was silent for a moment. "I sometimes forget that you were raised in a completely human kingdom." The witch sighed. "Though I shouldn't, especially since you keep voicing a lot of common misconceptions about storybook villains."

Apple furrowed her brow. "Misconceptions?" She asked.

"You have noticed how well Faybelle treats Briar with respect, how Ginger likes to spoil the Crumbs with sweets… haven't you?" The witch asks nervously.

Apple gives Raven an odd look as she lets them in to their dorm and walks to her bed. "Yeah… so?"

Raven moves her small chin to rest on Apple's chest, enabling her to look up at the princess. "Those small acts of fondness for our story counterparts are the manifestation of the kind of honor my family no longer has, the honor that all villain families need in order to get any kind of respect or recognition for their accomplishments after their story is done without it, like me, they are ostracized from their own society as well as a whole bunch of other race's societies… that whole business about people screaming and running away when I enter a room? Yeah that's not normal, especially since you are the only one who I would target and that is only for during your story, because traditionally all villains have a honor system that they must follow that involves protecting and caring for our counterparts, and not messing with other villains counter parts. The exact rules are different for every family but the main concepts stay the same."

Apple peered down at Raven, a wide smile spreading across her face.

"Are you saying that if another villain tried to do anything evil to me you'd step in to defend me?" The princess asked a twinkle in her eye.

"Well… yeah, I mean even though I don't have any honor you're still my princess so-" Raven looked away embarrassed.

"Ooh that is so sweet of you." Apple cooed hugging Raven close and kissing the top of her head.

In a puff of smoke and a startled yelp Raven transformed back into her usual form causing the witch to fall backward onto the princess's bed and dragging Apple with her.

Before Raven could comprehend what had happened she found her arms suddenly full of a laughing, cheering princess who was proceeding to plant kisses on her forehead and cheeks.

"Your princess! I knew you cared about me more than you let on I knew it!" Apple giggled settling to rest between Raven's legs and laid her head on Raven's shoulder. "And it was a kiss from your princess that has turned you back from being a kitty!" Apple cheered snuggling further onto Raven.

The witch froze, her face flushing hot, while it was normal for Apple to hug her, hold her hand, and maybe provide the occasional chaste kiss to her hair or cheek… having the very object of your completely-unexpected-and-unwanted-because-it-is-highly-innapropriate-and-heartbreaking crush in her arms and wiggling around so much that it was impossible to ignore the fact that so much their bodies were actually touching and her heart was pounding against her rib cage so hard that there was a sharp ache that accompanied each beat or maybe it was because the organ was finally giving out from the strain she had put under it to try to quell this little bit too big of a crush on the princess and hey was it getting difficult to breathe or what…? Raven may or may not be blacking out- ok yeah the darkness covering her vision. Yeah she was about to faint.

How embarrassing.

"But that makes the other's behavior towards you even more not right because you have always treated me so kindly." The princess huffed into Raven's shirt. Feeling offended on the witch's behalf. "It's not right to hold you accountable for the things your mother did."

Silence greeted her.

"Raven?" Apple asked sitting up and checking over the unconscious witch.

The princess sighed. "I guess she was more tired out than she let on." Apple murmured, concluding that the witch had fallen asleep. Wearing the ugly ratty orange t-shirt and tattered black shorts that Apple swore she had thrown away at least three times by now (when clothes started to get onto their last legs and since both Raven and she could afford it, Apple was of the opinion _that_ was when new clothes _needed_ to be bought, even more so when they were that ugly to begin with).

As she appraised the return of the hideous casual wear, something caught Apple's eye, just where the shirt had ridden up high enough to expose Raven's bare belly.

It was a scar, gashing across the witch's midsection.

Hands working of their own accord Apple lifted the shirt up higher and higher, revealing more scars scattered in pale gashes all over Raven's torso as she continued up.

There were about ten gashing scars raging in size that she could see on Raven's front but that was with Raven's white and blue-stripped bra on and some of the marks curved around to Raven's back.

With a deep breath and a hard swallow Apple turned Raven over on her side, inhaling sharply at what she saw.

The princess had seen photographs of people from other lands whose scarred backs had been whipped, some were slaves, some torture victims, but most had been surprisingly self-inflicted for religious purposes.

Raven's back looked like that of a priest that she had read about for her foreign studies class, in his religion it was believed that if one suffered pain (preferably to a nine tailed hand whip) at least once a week then his gods would forgive his sins.

Last she checked Raven did not subscribe to any religions that would require her to have a back that looked like the crisscrossed raised hide of a thorny screaming eel.

Raven shivered in her sleep, no doubt feeling chilled by having so much of her skin exposed, the witch made a soft mewl indicating she was about to wake.

Hastily Apple pulled down the (ugly) shirt and started to gently shake Raven's shoulder.

"Raven? Raven?" Apple cooed trying to get her shaking voice to sound as normal as possible.

The witch's eyes popped open. "Wha…?" Raven put a hand to her head. "What?"

"You fell asleep." Apple explained brusquely. "Come on, you've had a long weekend, lets get you to bed."

After ridding them both of their shoes, with surprising strength the princess hefted a blushing Raven up and carried the witch to be tucked in her own bed before the princess went back and practically dove under her red bed sheets where Apple waited until she heard Raven's occasional deep-sleep murmurs, it was then that the princess turned over to lay on her back and stared at her canopy with hard eyes as unanswered questions swirled inside of her head.

XXX

Cerise blinked, halting mid-run and jogging back to where she had spied a certain princess lying unconscious on the ground by some bramble bushes, an overturned basket of barriers by her side.

The hooded girl looked down upon Briar and then up at the setting sun and rising moon, she knew that there had been a berry picking activity organized for the weekend but that had been hours ago.

"Oi Briar!" Cerise called shaking the unconscious girl's shoulder.

"Mmmm." Briar complained as she stirred, but then appeared to sink back into unconsciousness.

With a sigh Cerise hefted the girl up into her arms and with a quick glance around, to make sure no one was looking, placed a kiss onto the princess's lips.

Briar shot awake, stiffening for a split second before she comprehended who had kissed her and relaxed with a defeated sigh.

"How long was I out for this time?" Briar asked her sort-of girlfriend irritably as Cerise started to walk the two of them to the girl's dorm.

It was an unspoken rule between the two; she and Cerise didn't really voice what they were to each other… whatever it was they were feeling about one another, because of Briar's destiny and because neither one of them were at all certain about what the future looked like.

Briar wasn't certain when or how their relationship changed from just acquaintances to what they were now, she just knew that one day Cerise had obliged to carry her after she had passed out in the middle of the woods and when Briar woke up Cerise had offered to run her back to the dorms and that was when Briar had discovered how fun it was to be in Cerise's arms while she was running.

Over the next several weeks an… attraction developed between them, and it was so mutual that neither one of them had felt like they had to hide their growing feelings for one another, while it was never voiced they had begun to cautiously change their platonic behavior to something with distinct undertones of attraction; lingering looks that burned, holdings hands when they could, and even a few stolen kisses when they were alone.

But they never went further than that, never did anything official, because despite their feelings being known and reciprocated between them… neither one of them was very keen on getting too involved only for their hearts to be broken. So they stayed on the balanced edge between an actual relationship, and being defined by their alliances to the Rebel/Royal causes.

"Dinner started fifteen minutes ago, you weren't there so I went looking for you." The hooded girl explained gently.

Briar cursed, her surprisingly colorful words making Cerise raise an impressed brow.

The princess scrubbed her eyes with her hands. "What did I miss this time?" She complained with a slight snarl.

"I overheard Apple apologizing to Ashlynn and Faybelle was able to win that villain competition, turns out Raven had made a deal with her to let Faybelle turn her into a cat as an evil deed in exchange for letting Raven hide out in her dorm for a few days." Cerise snorted. "The Headmaster looked like he was ready to have kittens by the end of it all."

"What did Apple do to Faybelle?" Briar asked sounding like a concerned mother of a child prone to violent outbursts. "Seriously, under her usual princess glam, she's really not someone to be messed with and she's super protective of Raven." The princess insisted when Cerise gave her a disbelieving look.

Cerise shrugged. "She didn't do much aside from giving Faybelle a scolding, though Faybelle seemed to be enjoying that more than being afraid, mostly Apple seemed more concerned with snatching Raven away and running her back to their dorm. And I don't think that she's mad at Raven anymore given the way she had been fussing over her the whole way back to the girl's dorms."

Briar let out a relieved breath. "At least that's one crisis averted." The princess mumbled, laying her head on Cerise's shoulder. "I can't believe I slept through that, another important thing that I just…" Briar shook her head. "Is this how it's going to be for me for the rest of my time here? How much am I going to have to miss before I… before I have to leave everything and everyone I love behind?" The princess whispered heartbrokenly.

Cerise kissed Briar's temple, changing direction, no longer heading back to the school, but to an old secluded gazebo she had passed many times before.

"How do you do it?" Briar asked as Cerise set her down on the bench inside the gazebo. "How do you get passed all that uncertainty and choose to be a Rebel?"

Cerise sat down heavily beside Briar. "I have more to lose by accepting my destiny than to gain." She confessed, loosely clutching the edge of her hood uncertainly, not sure whether or not answering the other's question completely would make anything easier or if it would turn out badly.

Briar blinked. "So you're a Rebel for more reasons other than personal beliefs." The princess stated as if she had known this fact all along. "Is this reason why you always keep your hood up?"

"Yes." Cerise stated simply, lowering her hand and giving Briar an apologetic look. "I… well you see… It's complicated, I would tell you but I don't think that I'm ready yet. I trust you but…"

"Hey, it's fine." Briar assured wrapping her arms around Cerise's. "It's your secret, you can tell or not tell, either one is fine by me."

Cerise swallowed. "…Maybe once there's a clear winner for either the Rebels or Royals, I'll tell you then?" She asked, hoping that if the Rebels won out then Briar might join her (although no matter which side won Cerise was determined not to go through with her destiny, she knew the forest better than most and her pack was willing to hide both her and her mother if it came down to it, so one day if Cerise just happened not to be there at graduation and professor Big Bad Wolf just so happened to look more smug than outraged at her and her mother's mysterious disappearance… well there wasn't a lot that the Headmaster could do about it, especially if he hadn't a clue what was really going on), might accept who- _what_ she was and maybe start a proper relationship… or if Briar decided to go through with her destiny (a day that Cerise tried not to think about often) then at least there would be no secrets between them, one last truth to be revealed at the last moment before Briar was taken away from her, a secret that Briar would keep guarded inside of her as she slept for a hundred years…

"Yeah." Briar said, snuggling closer. "I'd like that."

Cerise focused all of her senses to assure herself that Briar was there with her at the moment and tried to dispel those dark thoughts about the future. She was so far into her own thoughts that she nearly missed what had been said when Briar started speaking to her.

"Ah, could you repeat that?"

"I asked what you would do if you were made to stand before the Book of Legends? You didn't get a chance to on Legacy Day; I know that you wouldn't sign but I'm curious as to what you would do, would you run away?" Briar asked looking curious.

"Well…" Cerise hummed. "I would run away, but first I'd rip my page to pieces just to prove that whole disappearing crap is bull."

"Cerise!" Briar chastised clutching the spot where her heart was. "What if you're wrong? I don't want you to disappear while I still have the chance to be with you!"

Cerise just smirked, looking amused by Briar's reaction.

Briar scowled at the other's expression. "You jerk, don't tease me like that just to hear me say that I like you."

"I was actually telling the truth." Cerise chuckled. "But don't worry, I actually have it on good authority, as well as some proof, that I won't be going anywhere if I did that."

Briar blinked wide-eyed before squinting at the other suspiciously. "What proof?"

"Have you ever heard of the Tale of Two Sisters?" Cerise asked.

"Didn't they disappear?" Briar asked tilting her head to the side as she tried to recall the horror story her mother had told her. "I remember my mom talking about it when I had first learned of my destiny… one of her warnings that I should follow tradition." The princess's expression soured when she thought about her mother.

"I have some cousins in another dimension who assure me that they are alive and well." Cerise informed with a small placating smile. "Raven once told me and a bunch of other Rebels about this note that they had left behind in the library before they ran away, I had mentioned it to my mom and then she had mentioned it to the family and… well eventually word got around to my cousins who live in the same world that the sisters do. From what my cousins have told me the sisters are highly interested in the current Rebel cause and they want to know if I can arrange for them to meet Raven sometime."

Briar stilled, her eyes staring at Cerise with enough intensity that the hooded girl was certain that the other was looking into her very soul… it was a little unnerving.

"You… you have verified this right? There are no doubts that these sisters are who they say they are?" The princess asked carefully.

Cerise nodded, looking Briar in the eye, willing the other to believe her. "They've got photographs of themselves from Ever After High and they know things about this place that only a former student would know, like the fact that Professor Rumplestiltskin never seems to spin any straw into gold himself and ironically makes his students do it for him."

Briar was frozen for a while, which worried Cerise because she wasn't too sure that the other was breathing.

"Briar?" Cerise asked uncertainly.

"Hah…" Briar breathed slumping in her seat and clutching onto Cerise in a death grip.

"Briar?" Cerise asked in concern as she held the other up.

"We've been lied to." The princess shook, her eyes wild with a sort of anger that made Cerise want to back away from, but didn't because she was not the one who had earned the other's ire.

Briar looked up to meet Cerise's eyes. "We have been _lied_ to." She growled her teeth bared and her hands digging into Cerise's arm and side (for a damsel Briar had a surprisingly strong grip. Ow). "All of this, the fear, the resignation, throwing our whole lives away… it's all a lie! One giant, useless, ignorant _LIE_!" She howled at the sky making the birds in the surrounding area spook and fly away.

"I didn't think that you'd ever get this angry if you believed me." Cerise confessed nervously.

"Of course I'm angry! And of course I believe you! I know you wouldn't have told me unless you had looked into this and made sure that it was all true!" Briar yelled burying herself into Cerise's arms. "You would never lie about something like this! A hundred years… oh gods a hundred years and it would all be for nothing!"

"But it doesn't have to happen if you don't want it." Cerise assured, gently rocking the princess in her arms. "Whatever path you choose I'll support you, no matter what I'll be there." She promised at a loss for anything else to say, she hadn't expected the princess to get so worked up, sure most Rebels would get peeved whenever a Royal made biting comments about the rebellion or certain individuals (Ginger and Raven chief among them), and there were some exasperated grumblings whenever the Headmaster started in about duty and tradition, but the worse that had ever happened was one food fight, no one she had come across before had gotten this angry. If she were completely honest with herself Cerise had thought that Briar would have simply shrugged away Cerise's proof, either choosing not to believe her or dutifully saying that she must adhere to tradition.

Not once had Cerise actually dared think that Briar might… not want to be Sleeping Beauty… that she might want a life outside of destiny, what with the way she went on about living a party life until her story started and her being Apple White's right hand girl…

But then again Briar was one of the ones who would lose the most with her story… and as for Cerise, she had been living with a lie for so long that she was beyond feeling riotously angry about it, she had known no other way of life other than hiding and deception about who- _what_ she really was.

Cerise kicked herself for not telling the other sooner.

"Would you like for me to arrange you to talk to the sisters?" Cerise asked, feeling that since she was a little out of her depth with the other's reaction, maybe the princess would like to talk with the same people who indirectly helped Raven make her decision not to side with destiny.

"Yes." Briar nodded sounding grim and a little vulnerable. "But for right now could you… hold me for awhile?"

"That I can do." Cerise said as she nuzzled Briar's hair.

XXX

Faybelle sighed as she flopped down onto her bed for the night, her hard won trophy falling haphazardly to the side of her head.

"Five more days before I'm one step closer to becoming the evilest fairy in history." She sighed rolling over to lie on her stomach. "And five more days until Raven Queen becomes my bride… never would have seen that coming but, at least she's less annoying now that she's not a threat anymore…"

The fairy fell into silent contemplation, her mind swirling with nearly overwhelming thoughts on the past few days, the next few days, and most of all how she should go about dealing with Raven.

"I wonder if she'd be the kind of wife that can cook?"


	5. Chapter 5

A/n: New word I found in the dictionary: Lustrate: to purify through ceremony.

I have a head-cannon that Briar and her mother don't really see eye to eye, I don't know why but I keep getting the impression that Sleeping Beauty sees her first born daughter as a kind of sacrificial figurehead (I mean in thronecomming I get that the parents needed to give their kids something useful but to me a comfortable sleeping pillow for Briar to use for her story sounds more like Sleeping Beauty is saying; "don't forget that this is the only thing your good for as far as I'm concerned", because what mother eagerly gives a gift like that to a child that they are giving up for a hundred years? Wouldn't an emergency survival kit or maybe a time capsule for Briar to put all of her treasured things in be more… appropriate?).

Maybe it's just me (and the fact that I would have personally slain anybody who dared say that _my_ child had to sleep for a hundred years only to be married off to a complete stranger, if I were in Sleeping Beauty's place) and maybe I'm thinking too much about it, but it does create good conflict in my stories.

I also have it in my head that Snow White is repressed as hell, living contently in her pretty family castle and trying not to think about how her happily ever after never really seemed to have come yet… part of her just wanting her only daughter to live happily but that side being overruled by a sense of duty so strict that the doctor prescribed her some tranquilizers to help her feel better about it all…

Fun fact from the past; I was one of the few (there were two of us) kids in grade school who wasn't very impressed by fairytales, and often got into trouble with the other kids because I constantly poked holes into all the traditional stories. The girls especially didn't like the fact that I kept calling Snow White's prince charming a necrophiliac (he kissed what he thought was a corpse, on the mouth, and I was an immature nine-year-old, do I have to say more?). So maybe this is where I'm basing these character's personalities on.

Ooh weird thought… what do you guys say to Daring eventually forming a crush on Raven's grandmother Elenore? I think that it would be funny; do you think that it would be funny?

XXX

The dorm room door slamming open early Monday morning startled Apple from a fitful sleep, bolting to a sitting position the princess swore she felt her nerves begin to fray as Maddie marched in as if she owned the room and everything and everyone in it.

"Cheery sun fair one!" The intruding girl greeted Apple distractedly over her shoulder as she made her way to Raven's bed.

"Raven~." Maddie called with false cheer.

"Five more m'nutes…" Raven grumbled into her pillow, burrowing further into her comforter.

"Raven Queen~…" The hatter girl's voice had a slight edge to it.

"Mmmmph." Raven grumped turning her back to her friend with a content sleepy sigh.

"Kitty, get the bath ready." Maddie commanded the air.

With a delighted wide grin Kitty Cheshire appeared beside her fellow countryman. "As you desire my love." The cat-girl saluted, sauntering away to the bathroom.

"It's time to wake up!" Maddie crowed grabbing Raven's blankets with a great yank and attempting to shake out a now wide-eyed Raven from them.

"Eeek! Maddie!" Raven squawked as she held onto her warm blankets for dear life.

Apple opened her mouth to demand what was going on but between the sight of Raven hanging so stubbornly to the shaking sheets and the fact that the witch's shirt was riding up, exposing the girl's scarred back made Apple at a complete loss for words.

Eventually Kitty skipped back out of the bathroom and between the two of them, both her and Maddie were able to extract Raven from her sheets and drag her wriggling form into the bathroom, Raven protesting loudly all the way.

"Let go- do you have any idea what time it is? Where do you think your taking- EEEP! Don't strip me! What has gotten into- Maddie put that down! Don't come near me with that! I am not going in there until somebody tells me what- COLD! GAH! WHY DID YOU MAKE IT SO COLD? I CAN WASH MYSELF! I CAN WASH MYSELF! GO AWAY! LEAVE ME ALOOONE! I CAN WASH MYSELF!"

"Apple! What's going on in here?" Briar demanded brandishing an umbrella as a weapon as she and Ashlynn rushed in, Apple idly noted that since she hadn't heard the door slam open a second time that Maddie must have left it open.

"Well-" Apple began but was interrupted by two more people charging in.

"Daring let me go! It's none of our business!" Sparrow Hood hissed as he was dragged along behind by the Charming boy, both wearing their bookball practice uniforms.

"Fear not fair maidens, for it is I- and my less charming (human shield) sidekick- who have heard your calls for help as we were heading for bookball practice and so we jumped through the windows between our dorms to stage a daring rescue!" Daring declared as he struck a heroic pose.

"I think I just heard Daring- Kitty please give me back my clothes- what if he bursts in- ACK! Why does it have to be so cold? Turn up the heat! Turn up the heat! Please just let me bathe myself I'll do whatever you want if you just let me bathe myself!" Raven could be heard screeching from the bathroom.

"See, I told you it was none of our business." Sparrow told Daring as he gestured to the bathroom. "Can we go now?"

"Hmm." Daring scratched his chin in thought. "I do suppose a man gallantly running in to a girl's bathroom to save the day would be an ethical grey area… However!" The boy took his workout headband and covered his eyes with it. "A Charming prince can take down the enemy and rescue the damsel- or in this case Raven, with just his handsome smile! Sight is not a requirement! …Now which way was the powder room again?"

"She's not in any danger charming one, little Raven has a healer's appointment and if we don't escort her there she'll put it off, she really dislikes going to the healers you see." Kitty said as she popped out of the bathroom, raising an unimpressed brow at the room's reaction to her state of dress… or lack of dress.

"Oh my…" Ashlynn yelped utterly mortified to see the cat-girl walking around completely naked and without a care as to who saw her.

"I could have gone my entire life without seeing that." Sparrow hissed covering his eyes. "Kitty put on some damn clothes would you? Your making my eyes burn!"

"Sparrow that is no way to talk to a lady. Heroes don't complain about a lady's state of dress." Daring admonished, still wearing his headband over his eyes.

"Gay ones do." Kitty pointed out while she was rummaging around in Raven's closet.

"And gay ones are allowed to be horrified by sudden appearances of crazy naked women! Seriously Kitty, have you no shame?" Sparrow griped turning away in order to try to scrub at his eyes.

Daring froze. "Gay?" He asked bewildered.

"Relax Charming you aren't my type." Sparrow spat, not really caring much at all what the other boy thought of him, it wasn't like they were friends or anything, the most important people in his life already knew and either accepted him for what he was (his band, Duchess, and his mom) or just didn't care (Faybelle, Kitty, and his cousin Cerise).

"What do you mean I'm not your type? I'm everybody's type!" Daring gasped sounding hurt.

Kitty rolled her eyes as she took a bundle of clothing back into the ruckus in the bathroom and closed the door.

Sparrow cast Daring a pained look before shaking his head. "I am _not_ going to be pulled into that kind of argument, sorry ladies but you will have to deal with whatever is going on in here alone, I am leaving."

Daring pulled off his headband and hastily followed Sparrow out the door. "Now listen Sparrow I have nothing against fellas who like other fellas, and even though I'm a maiden's man I would not count it against you I you found me attractive. I'm a Charming prince it's bound to happen! Sparrow?"

"Oh dear kingdoms leave it alone!" Sparrow's retreating voice pled desperately.

"Um." Ashlynn looked around the room awkwardly. "Maybe now would be the best time to ask Apple what's going on? With Raven not…" She gestured to the door where the two boys had left.

Briar jabbed the tip of her umbrella down onto the floor. "Yes, Apple why is Raven making so much noise so early in the morning and why is it that Kitty and Maddie seem to be in the middle of all of it? And Why does Raven need to go to the healers? Is it something serious?"

Apple, feeling tired and a little terrorized, looked between her friends and the bathroom door, things had quieted down by then, the only thing that could be heard were the quiet undistinguishable tones of voices as Raven conversed with her friends.

XXX

"Warm." Raven sighed happily as she basked in the warm spray of the shower.

"See I told you that a warm shower would feel good after you woke up from a cold bath." Maddie nodded confidently. "It helps clear the mind, aids in making certain that there is a method to certain mad decisions."

Raven sighed. "Guys it's just a token marriage, and my dad had his own solicitors look everything over, it's all legit."

"It's not the token marriage that we're worried about." Kitty grumbled, hugging a naked Maddie from behind.

"It's that grumpy fairy Faybelle." Maddie elaborated bluntly. "How do we know she won't leave you after she's taken the title?"

Raven hummed in acknowledgement to her friends' concerns. "Well first, after my title is stripped, and if the Thorn clan did try to turn their backs on me apparently I can complete the marriage ritual with just about anybody from an honorable family and of my choosing, but it would be more beneficial for Faybelle to marry me seeing as leaving me at the alter would be considered a dishonorable act that could be counted against both her and her family. So she's pretty much stuck with me until her stories are finished."

The two Wonderlandians exchanged looks. "Are you sure about this Raven?" Maddie asked, looking concerned. "It is awfully sudden. And if you wanted to you could just wait it out until graduation, rebel against becoming the Evil Queen."

"I could do that." Raven admitted with a brave smile. "But this solution is both more permanent and it will ensure that Apple gets her fairytale, …and I can finally be completely free from my mother. That is all that matters to me."

Kitty looked to Maddie who sighed.

"Alright… as long as you know what you're getting into…" The girl relented.

Raven smiled, relaxing visibly. "Thanks guys, that means a lot to me. Now why don't you guys tell me about your weekend?"

XXX

Apple shrugged helplessly. "They were there when I woke up I don't… Raven never told me that she needed to go to the healers…"

Briar sighed rubbing the bridge of her nose. "Right, I'm going in there to see what's going on."

Apple found herself nodding before she remembered why she felt so tired, of how she couldn't get the sight of Raven's scars out of her mind."

"Wait!" Apple cried, leaping out of bed and grabbing Briar's arm.

"Apple what-?"

"Raven is really sensitive about letting people see her naked." Apple explained hurriedly.

Ashlynn pointed to the bathroom. "But Maddie and Kitty-"

"She trusts Maddie and Kitty to see her." Apple burst out almost angrily.

The blonde princess swallowed at the wide-eyed looks she received, releasing her tight grip on Briar and looked down almost apologetically.

"She… trusts them more than she trusts me, but I'm her roommate so sometimes I see… just… trust me on this; Raven doesn't like it when people she doesn't know all that well see her without her clothes on."

"She doesn't trust you?" Briar said slowly raising a brow. "But I've heard her call you one of the people she cares the most about. Regularly practically."

Apple shrugged looking ashamed. "Recent events have shown that I've… not been the best listener when it's come to my rebellious friends… I… I'm afraid that I've let my fear of not getting my fairytale cloud over other, more important issues that would affect Raven's life if she were to accept her destiny."

"Does it have anything to do with why Raven needs to see a healer?" Ashlynn asked worriedly.

"I…" Apple bit her lip and shook her head. "I don't know, maybe, Raven hasn't told me… I-I don't know if she will tell me… I…" The princess felt lost, for the second time in her life the future and everything she knew about the world had been turned on it's head.

Raven had an apparent knack for doing that to her just by existing.

Existing… Apple wondered… what if Raven had gotten those scars because someone didn't want the witch to exist at all… there was obviously more to this whole dishonor thing that Raven had talked about but… could part of it be that…

Apple inhaled shakily.

"Apple, what's wrong? Did you and Raven have a fight?" Ashlynn asked worried.

"No!" Apple shook her head. "No, we just talked and I… she told me some of the reasons why she doesn't want to sign the Book… I, ah, um… apparently there is this… villain honor code that her mother had broken, Raven said that the Evil Queen had disgraced their name which has caused some pretty serious issues for Raven, not for the Evil Queen since she's disappeared, just Raven…" The princess looked off to the side, lost in thought.

Apple still wanted her fairytale to have Raven in it but the idea that Raven might have to suffer for ensuring Apple's happily ever after… was guaranteed to suffer, the princess corrected herself, she and Raven had argued often on the issue of what would happen to Raven if she were to follow destiny, Apple's argument had always been that each new generation of the story varied and that Raven shouldn't have to worry about anything until it happened.

But now Apple saw just how dismissive and hypocritical she must have sounded to the witch, because for one it didn't matter how well she played her part because if she became the Evil Queen she would still be ostracized by those around her, and while Apple herself went on and on about Raven and herself being different from their moms, Apple would then turn around and go on about how she needed to be a perfect princess, a carbon copy of a Snow White, and how Raven needed to start acting evil just like her mother…

Raven's mother, who had done terrible things and left Raven to bear the ridicule of the woman's crimes, Raven who had hidden her scars and whatever awful things that had happened to her in the past behind a stubborn nature and a hope for a future where she could finally escape fairytales altogether.

Apple wondered if Raven would have ever gotten fed up with her enough to just show her those scars, just to get the princess to shut up for once. It would have worked; Apple certainly wasn't going to press Raven to act like a villain now, even if Raven did need to become the Evil Queen to avoid disappearing; Apple was fine with having a lovable antagonist for her story. Maybe Raven can play the part of the meddling matchmaker looking for a noble handsome prince for her friend to marry, or maybe Raven could be a… an enchantress or a brewing master who got her shipping orders for some poisoned apples and some decorative shiny apples mixed up and realizing the mistake, sought out a handsome prince to help her save the fallen princess… It could work, both were viable alternatives (it was a stretch sure but still a viable alternative), especially the last one since Raven already liked to spend her free time brewing things, or making things by hand, and she could be adorably clumsy at times when it came to magic so really that roll would fit her to a T.

For someone who was already a queen by title, and had a kingdom of her own… if you took away the fancy clothes (mostly bought and supplied by Apple after the princess had taken one look at the witch's horrifyingly minuscule, and mostly unbefitting wardrobe when the other had first moved in) Raven always kind of seemed… more like the kind of witch you'd find happily living alone in the middle nowhere and surviving solely off the land…

If that was Raven's plan, to up and disappear from everything and living out of reach in the wild, Apple was not going to let that stand, Raven was a queen in title and she had a kingdom to run (even though the neighboring kingdom's monarch had kindly assumed current responsibility and aid in running the place until Raven was old enough to take over) and Apple was not about to let her friend be forced to give up her birthright! If it came down to it Raven could seek refuge in one of the White family's private estates and conduct her business from there!

If only Raven had told Apple about the scars and her situation from the very beginning!

But… then again those scars were private, apparently only people that Raven had been friends with for a long time or people she trusted knew…

And Raven didn't trust Apple enough to tell her about them. Not that Apple blamed Raven for that… since Apple really hadn't been particularly… willing to listen or try to see things from Raven's perspective like fully-grown queen would have… or a half decent friend…

Oh Ancestors, what if Raven thought that Apple was just going to turn her back on the witch after she got her happily ever after? Could Raven really believe that Apple would just… throw her away like some sort of spent tool? Was that why she was keeping so many secrets from Apple?

"Right." Briar rolled her head to pop out a kink in it before turning and knocking on the bathroom door. She wanted answers, now, and Apple's sudden indecisive mood was not helping the sudden overwhelming feelings of irritation she had acquired since yesterday evening.

"Briar!" Apple admonished making to stop her friend.

Briar ignored her. "Raven? We heard that you had to go into the healers today, is everything alright?"

"Briar?" Raven's muffled voice came through the door. "Just one second, let me put something on!"

"Raven, you don't have to tell us anything if you don't want to!" Apple called once she reached the door. The uncharacteristic words making both Ashlynn and Briar raise their eyebrows, usually Apple wanted to know everything about her friends.

"It's fine?" Raven sounded confused too. "I forgot to tell you about it last night so it'd be best if I told you before I leave!"

Apple seemed to relax for some reason. "Ok, take your time! No matter what is going on I'll be supporting you all the way!" The princess assured.

"Thanks?" Came Raven's confused reply.

"What has gotten into her?" Briar hissed to Ashlynn out of the corner of her mouth. The two brunettes watched uneasily as their blonde friend seemed to be practically embracing the bathroom door. "I've got nuthin' on possible explanations, how 'bout you?"

"Maybe she thinks Raven's pregnant?" Ashlynn shrugged.

Briar gave her friend an odd look. "What?"

"You said to guess." Ashlynn defended.

"Raven is as gay as they come, you remember; I had told you about how I overheard Raven tellin' Dexter that she was flattered by his love letter but she wasn't capable of reciprocating, and then Dexter admitting that he thought that he was the only gay person at this school and how he wrote Raven the letter because he admired her and hoped that he could make himself normal if he tried, and then the two of them had a gay bonding moment." The princess whispered furiously to the other.

"Yes, but does _Apple_ know all that?" Ashlynn countered.

The two watched as Raven exited the bathroom not adorning any makeup, or her usual crown, and wearing one of her non-corseted black dresses and a jacket, Apple was practically on top of her in a heartbeat.

Raven stiffened and gave the blonde princess an odd look. "Hey Apple… is something wrong?"

"That's what I want to know from you." Apple said placing a hand on Raven's stomach, over one of the scars that she knew was hidden beneath the fabric, making Raven wince ever so slightly. "You're not sick are you, or… anything worse?

Raven grimaced guiltily and peered at the other with a sidelong glance. "I'm sorry if I had worried you, but um… you see the reason why I'm going to the healers… well it has to do with my magic, and how it's been acting up whenever I try to do something non-evil with it."

Apple furrowed her brow. "But that should be a normal thing for you…"

"Apparently not." Raven shook her head, politely cutting Apple off before destinies and fairytales could be mentioned. "I've had a chat with a few magic-users who were raised by witches and fairies, and a brief talk with the head Healer here early yesterday morning, according to them it's very unusual for my magic to be behaving the way it has, regardless of my heritage. Healer Phalange, She's the head healer here, wants to run me through a whole bunch of tests because of the fact that I've been living with this for years and she's… concerned about the potential long-term damage it might've caused me."

Apple raised both eyebrows. "If this is so concerning then why hasn't anybody tried to fix it before?" She asked suspiciously, knowing that the only magic user the witch had been in contact with recently had been Faybelle, and with Faybelle it was always best to be suspicious.

"I was raised entirely by humans." Raven informed neutrally. "They had done their best in raising me to become a capable witch, don't get me wrong, but there were a few things that… well that they were unable to explain and…" The witch casts Briar and Ashlynn a nervous glance. "That thing I told you about last night… for my own... safety I couldn't be looked over by any outside healer that the family who raised me didn't trust, and their healers were trained in solely the human physical, not a witch's magical wellbeing."

"So everyone just assumed that your magic going off kilter was normal." Apple concluded stiffly, not sounding very pleased.

"They did their best." Raven stressed, now letting some emotion escape into her tone. "And hey, I turned out alright, maybe not Evil Queen material, but still… they did raise me the best way they knew how, and I think that they did a good job."

Apple sighed; letting the turmoil she felt churning inside settle for a moment as she tried to focus. "When is your appointment?"

"Right before breakfast." Maddie piped up. "The lady healer wanted to see Raven as soon as possible."

Apple looked at the clock hanging over her desk, classes wouldn't begin for another three hours. "Right then, let's get going." The princess stated serenely, beginning to pull Raven towards the door.

"Apple… you're still in your pajamas." Raven coughed, putting her heels down to keep Apple from marching out into the hallway.

"Oh!" Apple looked down in surprise. "I forgot…"

"Get some sleep." Raven advised quickly as she wriggled free of the other's grip and started to walk away. "You don't have to be up for a while yet, I'll let you know the prognosis later."

"You'd better." Apple swore determinately before shifting uncertainly. "See you later?"

"'Course." Raven nodded quickly with an awkward smile. "I live here too you know." The witch pointed out almost fondly as she and the two Wonderlandians stepped out of the dorm.

At the sound of the front door finally closing Apple leaned heavily against a wall.

Was it just her or did Raven seem… more distant than usual?

XXX

"Are you sure that it'll be okay for you to disappear for a lunch?" Cerise asked looking behind her uneasily as she guided Briar through the dark forest, half expecting one of Briar's friends to have followed them.

"I told Blondie that I was off to take a nap over by the training grounds used for general villainy, none of the other maidens or princes will go near there for their reputation's sake, well except for Tiffany Muffet, but she's a Rebel and she doesn't care at all what her peers think of her, and I highly doubt that anyone has managed to follow us with the way you were running us all over the edges of the campus's grounds like you were."

"If your sure…" Cerise turned her attention back to the winding trail in front of them. "The sisters had said that they'd like it if the Headmaster does not find out about where they are, in case he tries to nab them and make them sign the Book."

Briar furrowed her brows. "I don't think that the Headmaster is the type of person to do something that extreme." The princess looked over to Cerise. "Is he?"

"According to the sisters he was a lot more strict and demanding while they were going to school, he used to be called _the_ _scowling Headmaster_ because he never really seemed to want to enjoy life in general and aside from a few extreme incidences he seemed to seclude himself into his office and actively avoided students at all cost for a while." Cerise made a face. "Compared to the version of the Headmaster that the sisters used to know, our Headmaster is… well almost bearable."

"I wonder why he used to act like that?" Briar mused trying to mentally compare the same man she had seen practically light up in glee when Ginger presented him with a bag of cookies she kept set aside for him just incase everything else she had made for one of the fundraising events had sold out before he could get there, with the man that Cerise had described. Sure the Headmaster was strict, and he wasn't a lot of Rebels favorite person but he stayed fairly patient towards Raven, constantly trying to encourage her to be mischievous and conduct school approved evil deeds. It never really worked of course; the most he ever got out of Raven was when she got particularly irritated with him (she once turned him into a chicken in a fit of outrage over his antics) or if she felt guilty enough over his desperate expression to grant him at least a minor mischievous act (magically coloring a plate of ham and egg sandwiches green), just enough to keep his hopes up.

"You can ask the sisters if they know why." Cerise looked around, taking out her mirror-phone. "I think that this spot is secluded enough."

The two set up their picnic lunch on a large, flat boulder that was warmed by a particularly large ray of sunlight that had managed to find a gap in the trees, once everything had been set out Cerise dialed her phone.

"Hey Cerise! How's you rebellious life going? Is that pretty girl sitting next to you that _special someone_ you were talking about the other day?" A happy mature woman's voice asked through the phone screen.

Cerise smiled back her fangs peeking over her bottom lip cutely. "Yep, I'd like you guys to meet Briar Beauty, I hope you don't mind but she's got some questions to ask you."


	6. Chapter 6

A/n: curse you for not letting me post more than six thousand words per chapter.

I didn't mean to but it seems that I've just made an AU story to TTLL, oh well it's shaping up pretty well so far.

XXX

Faybelle stood discretely outside the healer's offices at lunchtime, holding two takeout boxes and staring at them in bemusement.

"There is nothing weak about checking up on one's intended bride." The fairy murmured lowly looking around the hallway to the staff and a few students exiting the doors. "But since this is a secret elopement it would be best not to draw too much attention…"

If Faybelle had it her way then she would have spirited Raven away two days ago and spent a week off from school completing the marriage ritual so that she could announce to everyone and everything that she had gained the rights to the Evil Queen title and had stolen the vile woman's precious daughter to boot.

But Ever After High's most watched witch and herself disappearing so suddenly would raise too much suspicion, with so many scheming eyes watching Raven Queen's every move, hoping to find a weakness and push the girl to fulfill their own agendas… that would be very troublesome indeed.

Once it had appeared that everyone had exited for lunch Faybelle spirited herself into the healer's offices and focused on evading the eyes of the lingering staff while she quietly peered into rooms trying to find her intended bride to be.

She eventually found Raven, or more like she had sensed Raven's magic, in one of the far back examination rooms, when she opened the door Faybelle was greeted to the sight of the dozing witch strapped down to a complicated looking padded chair and wearing a medical gown that had a front and a back and tied together at the sides, her legs and feet hidden underneath a heavy cotton blanket.

But that wasn't what had caught Faybelle's eye the most, since the glowing magic circle around the chair and the clear plastic tubing filled with different colored liquids attached to Raven's skin should have been enough to give even the most dimwitted pixie a reason to pause.

"Can I help you Miss Thorn?" Asked a gruff female voice.

Faybelle startled, finding that while she had been staring at Raven, Healer Phalange had managed to walk up behind her.

At the sound Raven blinked awake and turned her head. "Faybelle?" She asked sounding dazed.

"I brought Raven her throne-work for the morning and some lunch… is she allowed to eat?" Faybelle held up the boxes in her hands while allowing herself the luxury of looking at Raven with equal parts worry and horror. "Is she alright?"

Healer Phalange gave Raven a questioning look.

"Yeah, it's alright to tell her, I give permission for her to know my medical condition." Raven nodded, leaning back so that she could rest her head more fully onto the neck pillow provided for her.

"Upon initial examination we have found that Miss Queen's magic core has been infected with a curse." Healer Phalange explained, walking past Faybelle to activate a large mirror-holographic-computer, pulling up images of charts and reports with her fingers to float in the air as she did. "It took us most of the morning to figure out the nature of the spell and how it was affecting Miss Queen since my magic-user staff could detect a presence of _something_ being wrong but at the same time being unable to disable the curse through normal means, we even called in a few princes and, at Miss Queen's insistence, one princess to see if their natural inherited curse-breaking abilities would have an effect, much to their wounded prides, it had not."

Faybelle noticed that Raven had pulled a face at the mention of Ever After High's resident princes' "help", making Faybelle suspect that the witch hadn't been too keen on letting a bunch of males kiss her in order to see if they could break her curse.

"And then lab tech number nine had discovered something odd with the blood sample we had taken. As you can see we are both straining the things out of her blood and introducing body-fluid friendly potions into her body to help her combat the magical hold they've got over her." Healer Phalange pulled up two images of two different circular metallic strips, with magical spells etched into them using one of the old languages, dwarfed amongst what looked like a magnified picture of blood cells.

"Someone had somehow managed to get their hands on the technology to create these hellish microscopic things, completely harmless to the body on it's own but with the amount of magic embedded into each of these, to be honest Miss Queen is quite lucky that the one who made these had apparently known what they were doing, even though it's a damn worrying thought to consider the amount of research they must have had to go through to make sure they injected Miss Queen with just enough to not end up killing her, since this is the first I've ever heard about such a thing like this."

Faybelle gave the older woman a wide-eyed look; according to Charlotte and her mother; Healer Phalange was some sort of famous (and sometimes infamous) legend amongst the medical community, for the woman to be saying that she had never seen or heard of insanely tiny talismans being injected into people's bloodstreams was… Faybelle looked over to Raven who was looking paler than normal and doing her best not to look at the holo-mirror.

The healer pointed to one of the microscopic talismans. "The one on the right is what has been tampering with Miss Queen's magic ability and the one on the left is designed to keep a specific individual away from her, we haven't determined how this talisman goes about ensuring such a thing, nor have we translated the particularly confusing bit that states just who it is trying to keep away from Miss Queen, or when these could have been administered by the current Evil Queen, however I suspect that there is _someone_ in this room who might be willing to oblige the medical professional everything I need to know about the who, and the when, maybe even the how."

Raven stiffened, looking like a caged animal. "How did you know that it was my mother who did this to me?"

In answer to this Healer Phalange brought up a third image of one of the metal strips, this time the writing was written in standard.

"On the backs of the talismans used to curse your magic we found that… someone has gone to the trouble of signing her name." Healer Phalange stated dryly.

Faybelle squinted hatefully at the hologram as she could distinctly read the words; _PROP. OF EQ_ etched into the material.

"That bitch." The fairy hissed quietly. She was really going to enjoy marrying Raven now, not just for the title, or for the bragging rights, but the very idea that she was taking away someone who the Evil Queen considered property set a determined sort of primal glee in her gut, much like the feeling that she had often read her ancestor's describing when they procured a bride from an enemy human family to help them gain leverage and bragging rights over the weaker race.

The fairy resolutely tried to ignore the pangs of pity towards Raven, the girl may be her intended and Faybelle had personal interest in ensuring that the witch was healthy, satisfied, and safe, but it was still early days, not more than a few days ago Faybelle had been so certain that the witch was an overdramatic pain, Faybelle had been proven wrong, but she still did not know Raven all that well.

"What was that?" Raven asked.

"You told me that you remember your magic going screwy on you sometime around the poisoning of Wonderland." The fairy said turning to look at Raven squarely in the eye. "Healer Phalange is bound by her oath to keep mum in regards to your health and past history, plus she has been given references for this job by my own mother, trust me she doesn't do that for just anybody."

Raven's eyes widened. "Are you saying that-?"

"This is far too important to keep her in the dark Raven." Faybelle told the witch sternly. "I mean look at you, your blood is being strained through a tube above your head for ancestor's sake!"

Raven peered up to where she could see tubes carrying her blood stuck into her strapped down arms leading up to a box of some sort fixed above her head, the lab tech that helped set her up mentioned that the box was usually used to filter out blood incase one of the students accidentally got bitten by an incredibly rare two-headed venomous snake that had been spotted on occasion in the deeper parts of the forest surrounding the school, there had been no recorded bites as of yet and hardly anybody was willing to travel that far into the woods, but they kept the equipment on hand just in case, you never knew what might happen with so many villainous classes and personal experiments going on the side (donations by rich families to the medical offices no doubt made Ever After High the best place to get sick or cursed because the healers seemed to have every medical device under the sun).

Raven sighed. "I… don't know. Are you absolutely sure-?"

"Yes." Came the dry chorused reply from both Faybelle and Healer Phalange.

"Again, I point out that you are currently strapped down, with your blood, being strained, through a metal box, above your head." The fairy said slowly, as if talking to a particularly simple individual (she knew that Raven was far from simple, stubborn as hell there was no doubt, but she at least seemed to be a creature driven by logic, with hope, reason would win out over the girl's insecurities).

Raven blinked, Faybelle could see the gears turning in her brain as she considered the fairy's reasons, she looked around her no doubt looking to make sure that there were no mirrors in the room (even though for privacy reasons all regular mirrors were banned from the medical rooms and she was sure that Raven had already scanned the room for them anyway,) and after taking one last look at the box and the tubes filled with her blood suspended over her head, she began speaking.

"I'm pretty sure that it's my grandmother who is the one my mother doesn't want me to be around, I know that she has been cursed to fall ill if she gets anywhere near me or the Queen territory so it wouldn't be surprising if my mother had decided to be double cautious and decided to curse me as well as my grandmother… mother had always had this thing about being completely thorough."

"The Evil Queen cursed her own mother?" Faybelle asked incredulously.

"Grandmother was not at all pleased by my mother's actions in her career as Evil Queen… or with the way she treated me." Raven sighed. "My… parents never married, they were supposed to share equal custody of me for the most part, but my mother was often away doing who knows what with her time so she used to just drop me off with my grandmother when it was her turn to have me over. Due to my mother's… past behavior, my grandmother was the one who used to run the Queen's lands, my mother was barely mentally fit enough to take care of me let alone a kingdom. The two of them rarely got along especially in the months before Wonderland was poisoned…"

Raven swallowed. "One day my mother did not take me back to the estate in the Queen territory, for a few days I hadn't really suspected that my mother was going to do anything malicious… until she used my blood as a sacrifice in a ritual for… a curse, my memory's kind of fuzzy about the whole thing but I think that my mother could have injected me with whatever that stuff is along with the pain medication she kept giving me. I was really out of it but the only thing I really know, from what other people had told me was that my grandmother had tracked me down and smuggled me away while my mother was off terrorizing Wonderland… that's pretty much the last I've seen my grandmother in person she's… well she was in a medical facility for a while, they tried to figure out how to cure her so that she could help raise me and rule the territory but they never did… so now she's off teaching at a witch academy under an assumed alias… whenever she is well enough, and using the resources there to try to strengthen her body and fight of her… condition."

"Condition?" Healer Phalange asks. "My junior lab tech found those metal bits in your blood within an hour of you coming in here, if your grandmother really is suffering from the same case of microscopic talismans swimming in her veins, what medical facility would be so irresponsible as to not look at her blood in a routine examination?"

"After Wonderland and the other worlds had been poisoned death threats had been issued to my entire family, they moved her to the only place that would both let her in and was remote enough that no one would try to finish her off… although I will admit that she would agree with you, when I asked about the place she was staying she had some… very colorful words in regards to how the Brotherhood of Shimmy Gaba is run."

"That would explain it." Healer Phalange sneered in disgust at the mention of the secluded medical temple. "I'm surprised that place is still open considering that it's being run by a bunch of old men who can't tell the difference between a foot and a hand."

"What condition is your grandmother in now?" Faybelle asked, the way that Raven had talked about her grandmother's health had sounded… suspicious.

Raven twitches in her restraints nervously. "My mother did some other things to my Grandmother that has left her… physically and magically impaired… well as much as anything can attempt to slow her down or get in her way. She doesn't like to talk about it much but, um… if you wanted to know more about it, it's… not my place to say, but if you give her a good reason I'm sure that she or her nurse will tell you all about it, just make sure that there are no mirrors within hearing distance of you when you call."

"Somebody has been spying on Raven and all of her acquaintances through the mirrors." Faybelle clarified when the Healer gave the witch a strange look.

"Right." Healer Phalange sighed. "Utmost discretion. Where is your grandmother staying?"

"Hathor Witch Academy." Raven said, making Faybelle do a double take.

Healer Phalange nodded approvingly. "It's going to be half days all this week as the school prepares for that game thing; how's about you keep coming in after class for treatment until we are able to clear your blood completely and get your core back up to a healthy speed. For now, I'll call in the lab numbers to unhook you, with the supervision of Miss Thorn, I'd like you to eat, and drink lots of juice, after that I'll come back and we can all call your grandmother together."

"K." Raven nodded timidly.

"Great, now if you excuse me I've got to go an make some old men cry before alerting several more credible institutions that I will be sending them some very unique talismans that I need them to study pronto, I promise to be vague when it comes to where I got the damn things from, but it is highly necessary that I know what kind of spells were used so that I can counteract any unforeseen side effects." The healer proclaimed before opening the door and leaving.

Raven closed her eyes and breathed. "Grandmother is going to blow up something if it turns out that she's got these things in her blood too." And the witch meant that literally.

"Look on the bright side." Faybelle steadied her voice into a cool seductive tone, walking forward until she was standing next to the witch, close enough to lean in till her face was inches from Raven's. "On Friday I will whisk you away, and come Monday you will be my bride."

Faybelle was surprised when Raven actually smiled up at her. "Thank you for taking this title away from me, I know that you're doing this for your own gain but it really does make me happy knowing that you are helping to free me of all this mess. Thank you."

The fairy blinked. "You're acting rather calm and cheery for someone whose about to be married off to a wicked fairy for mutual personal gain and not love." She trailed a finger down the side of Raven's cheek. "You will be considered mine, you do realize that right? Fairies are very territorial creatures, and I am one of the wretched ones, now that I have you I won't let go until I get what I want from you."

Raven gave her a wry little smile. "Well as long as we treat each other right, and work at being civil with each other then we can stand a chance to at least be content with this arrangement right?"

Again Faybelle felt surprised. "Well obviously we are going to have to figure out a way to stay in the same room together without the indignity squabbling over every little thing like one of those human arranged marriages." The fairy sniffed. "And I'm going to have to eventually use actions to better show potential rivals that you are mine, at least until I can safely announce that you are my wedded bride. That is just the way that this is going to have to work."

"Isn't that how most token marriages between our races are supposed to go?" Raven asked curiously. "Even though you'll be hard pressed to find a rival who is willing to try to steal away the daughter of the-"

A ringtone echoed out in the quiet of the room.

"That's the ringtone I gave for Apple, shoot I forgot that I promised to call her with news as soon as I could, I guess not hearing from me by lunchtime has her worried, I'll have to call her back after they unhook me." The witch murmured, her attention turned away from Faybelle and to her folded clothes in the corner.

Faybelle narrowed her eyes, realizing that if anyone had the power to put this whole deal at stake, it would be the clingy princess that had unknowingly stolen the witch's heart already.

The fairy took hold of the witch's chin, turning the other's head so that Faybelle could place a chaste kiss to Raven's brow.

"You can call her after we are finished conducting business with your grandmother." The fairy ordered gently. "Focus on your needs first before dealing with your soon-to-be-former princess."

Raven blinked up at Faybelle in confusion before nodding in agreement since the fairy did have a point.

XXX

"Kitty why do you always trick Professor Pied Piper into playing an instrument?" Raven sighed tiredly, glancing at the wall's clock, it was the last class before lunch and she was anxious to get whatever horrors the healers had in store for her over and done with so that she can work on finally mastering her magic without the curse messing with her.

"Because it never fails to be fantastically amusing." Kitty grinned cheekily.

"Raven. Psst. Hey Raven." Daring leaned over his seat to tap Raven on the shoulder.

"What is it Daring?" Raven turned her attention to the boy. "Do you need me to help you take another picture of you playing an instrument… again?"

"Maybe later." The boy whispered. "I was actually… just wondering if my princely kiss has cured you of your curse yet, seeing as maybe it just took a while before it was broken."

"Princely kiss?" Kitty asked.

"The Healers brought in a bunch of princes and Darling to see if they could break my curse by kissing me." Raven clarified sounding resigned. "And no Daring, they found that the only way of getting rid of the curse is to strain my blood, the person who had cursed me designed the whole thing so that it would be resistant to even a prince's kiss." The witch informed, gingerly poking at the bandages on her arm.

"So I had no effect at all?" The boy seemed to deflate.

Raven hesitated. "Well I did have a headache from when the healers used magic to try to pinpoint the location of the curse… and that did go away…" After Darling has kissed her and the rest of the princes had walked out of the healer's office defeated.

Daring broke out a delighted smile humming happily to himself as he watched the professor try to round up the rats that were running loose in the classroom.

"Your Rebel cause has made you soft." Kitty warned with a flat look directed towards Daring.

"I can't deny the truth." Raven shrugged, not sounding concerned at all.

Daring seemed to halt mid-hum as a realization finally struck him.

"Wait, did you just say that they're having to strain your blood?" The prince asked horrified.

 _"Raven Queen report to the Headmaster's office."_ The announcement speaker spoke boredly.

Raven looked over to the wall clock. "But I have to go to the healers right after class!" The witch complained exasperatedly.

 _"Then you better start moving now."_ The speaker snapped at her.

"Kitty, Daring, could one of you please tell the healers that the Headmaster called me into his office and that I might be a little late." The witch grumbled as she got up, glaring at the speaker as she did so.

XXX

"Miss Queen what happened to your arms?" The headmaster asked her the moment she stepped into the room. The tone of concern in his voice only seemed half-false

Raven looked down to her bandages, mentally thinking that the small pieces of taped gauze were far less interesting than what the Headmaster was making them out to be. "They're from a procedure that I have to go through every day this week in the healer's offices after morning classes." The witch said, deciding that it would probably be fore the best not to elaborate.

This time the Headmaster's concern turned genuine. "What procedure?" He asked now looking at her arms with genuine interest.

Raven shook her head gently. "It's a long story and I really don't have the time to explain it now seeing as I need to get over to the healer's as soon as I'm done here."

That seemed to throw the older man a little. "Of course Miss Queen, do you have some time for something to eat, maybe a boiled dragon's egg? Why don't you sit down?" The man gestured to the surprisingly comfortable chair placed in front of his desk (it hadn't been there the last few times Raven was sent to the office) he tried to sound cheerful but his eyes kept straying to Raven's arms.

"I can't eat anything until after the healer's have finished with me." Raven sighed as she sat down. "And you don't have to pretend to be so nice to me, I already know that you… don't like me much… it'll be faster if you just tell me why I'm here, in your normal tone of voice." The witch sighed unhappily, really she had nothing against the Headmaster but his desperate behavior towards her was sometimes… difficult to take, a little heartbreaking really, well she at least admired how merciful he had been towards her thus far.

The Headmaster leaned forward, looking a little hurt. "Now Miss Queen do you really believe that I dislike you so much?"

"Yes." Raven said simply, with so much honesty that the old man actually winced. "But it's really nothing new to me, and I don't hold it against you… although if I'm perfectly honest I am confused as to why you are so keen on getting me to become the Evil Queen. I had thought that you would have jumped at the chance to expel a troublemaker like me so that you could get someone who actually has their family honor intact to play that role."

"Is that what this whole thing has been about?" The Headmaster asked looking torn between relieved and disturbed. "Miss Queen I know that whole honor business had been hard for you but it's all a bunch of ridiculousness, you are not accountable for your mother's crimes, and we are living in an era where such archaic customs hardly matter as time wears on."

"The Waco clan is still shunned by almost all the honored houses for a crime where one of their ancestors had started a cult and then gave their followers a potion that sent them into a rage before it killing them, that had been _one_ village wiped out nearly two hundred years ago, my mother attempted to wipe out half a dozen worlds at once and rule over whoever had survived." Raven stated unhappily.

"But the Waco's have secluded themselves to their land, are hostile to outsiders, and still uphold the practice of using the bones of those massacred villagers, as well as the bones from old graves, -and the occasionally donated body- for forbidden magic practices and to decorate the halls of their ancestral home." The Headmaster pointed out. "You and your family are nothing like the Wacos Miss Queen, if you become the Evil Queen then you can prove to the realms that you are nothing like your mother, that you have just as much honor… as your grandmother… and all those who came before her."

Raven shook her head. "It's not that simple and you know it."

"But I believe that you are strong enough to do it." The Headmaster stated with what seemed to be genuine emotion. "You've already made so many future allies and so much of the school looks up to you."

"That's still not enough to bring back the honor my mother took away from me, the only way out is if I never sign the Book and someone else takes the title in my stead." Raven's voice shook only slightly but she remained firm and dry-eyed as she spoke.

"I strongly believe that if anyone can accomplish this, it is you." The Headmaster insisted with actual sincerity, making Raven pause.

"You aren't tapping your fingers." She said dazed. "You're telling the truth, you actually believe that."

What does tapping my fingers have anything to do with me telling the truth?" the man asked a little guarded.

"It's your tell." Raven explained. "The Good King's mother would only give me pocket change to spend from what I could win off her and her friends in pirate style poker, I mostly played with her because it felt better knowing that I had worked for my money rather than asking the Good King for some, so I've gotten good at catching people's tells."

The Headmaster raised his brows.

"It was a life skill she wanted me to get good at incase I ever needed to acquire funds in a remote area, she also taught me how to play several forms of chess, sticks, marbles, how to make trick shots for pool, cheat at drinking games, and play dominos, for just that purpose." Raven shrugs. "She's worried that I might be run out of a town or two when I grow up."

The Headmaster continued to stare at her in the same way lots of people did when they found out about the Lady Good King's "lessons" (and Raven's human grandmother _loved it_ when people stopped what they were doing to give her the same look the Headmaster was giving Raven, made her feel accomplished as a grandmotherly figure in Raven's life).

"I'm honored that you think so highly of my abilities to gain back my family's honor, but I'm still not going to sign the Book." Raven told the man as she made to get up from her chair. "I'm not going to risk the reputation of either Apple or what family I have out in the world by signing it and potentially making things worse."

"It's dangerous not signing Miss Queen, your story could disappear." The Headmaster tried, his mind still stuck on the fact that there had been someone who had taught Raven, as a child, how to gamble. "You and the rest of your Rebellion could disappear."

"I highly doubt that we'll disappear." Raven said dryly, keeping in mind that the sisters wanted complete discretion in regards to their existence so it would be best if she did not reveal that they were still alive to the man. "And at any rate Apple's fairytale will be the first one to start and since I never signed the Book I will be the first to go, so if I disappear then that should be decent enough warning for everyone to make the time to not end up like me, that is if that myth proves to be true, which I'm pretty sure it's not."

"This is not something you should joke about Miss Queen!" The Headmaster snapped in reprimand.

"I'm serious." Raven told him seriously, looking him directly in the eye. "If I thought for even a second that I was putting anybody but myself at risk, that there was no hope at all for me to live out my own destiny, I would have not tried to do something so as publicly scandalous as what had happened on Legacy Day."

"You would have signed the Book?" The Headmaster asked, suspiciously hopeful.

"Oh no, I would have ran away and waited until you had no choice but to have someone else take my place." Raven told the horrified man, not at all sounding disturbed by her own words. She was tired with this whole conversation. "My family's dishonor has already taken away my culture, my family name, my father, and my grandmother at the very least I'd like to keep what's left of myself before the rest was taken away from me."

"What would your grandmother think? To have raised such a resigned, troubling child!" The Headmaster gaped in outrage.

"My grandmother did not raise me after Wonderland was poisoned." Raven nearly growled, she was at the end of her rope, did the man not understand just what an impossible task he was asking of her? Of what he demanded she give up? The only thing she had left was her birth name and the freedom that came from denying destiny. She did not care if this argument resulted in her expulsion, or if such a thing were to happen somewhere down the line, becoming the Evil Queen was the one thing that Raven could not allow to happen.

"She… what?" The wind seemed to be blown out of the Headmaster's sails.

Raven stood up. "She had no choice in the matter, and she still is hardly happy about it, but the consequences of my mother's very poor choices with her career made it… it was far too dangerous for her to stay, and she was far too injured to force the situation to be more reasonable, so she used her influence to get the Good King and his family to take me in and to look after the Queen territory, now if you will excuse me Headmaster, this painfully awkward conversation about the past and all the could-have-been's has been fun but I really have to get going." The witch informed brusquely, intending to leave before she lost control of herself and turned the Headmaster into a chicken… again.

"Elenore was injured?" The Headmaster asked now seemingly completely focused on Raven's grandmother for reasons that confused Raven greatly.

"How do you know my grandmother's birth name?" Raven asked suspiciously.

The Headmaster looked like a deer caught in the headlights. "W-Well M-Miss Queen… the former Evil Queen was a well respected classmate of mine while we went to school togeth- at the same time as each other and I felt… much respect for her and we were very close- friends, friends we were-" The man gestured wildly.

"Never mind!" Raven grimaced holding up her hand to signal the man to stop, she had seen the same body language from enough men in relation to _both_ her grandmother's to know what relationship the Headmaster had, or wished he had with her grandmother. "There are some things about my grandmother's private past affairs that I really would rather not know about."

The Headmaster actually blushed much to Raven's horror. "Oh no you misunderstand-"

Raven closed her eyes feeling pained and utterly scared for life. "All due respect sir, please don't ever play poker, it would be a really terrible idea." She moved past his desk and towards the door in a desperate attempt to escape.

"Miss Queen!" Raven heard the man call out.

"Important medical procedure, I am out the door now!" Raven said quickly as she fled the room.

The Headmaster bit his lip, feeling rather awkward now that secret was out; he jumped and looked at his phone wearily when it rang.

"Yes?... Why hello Healer-… yes I was the one to call Miss Queen into-… yes she did tell me that she had an important procedure-… er, no, I did not think to check to see if she had any other pressing engagements-… why I called her in? Well I wished to inform her about the Book being brought out for Throne-… yes I know that the medical wing holds equal or more power to me in regards to a student or staff's health-… yes I do realize that I have been putting off my medical exam-… Miss Queen is on her way as we speak Healer; there is no need to resort to that sort of thing-… my head feels perfectly fine Healer, there is no need to check it-… yes… yes… I am sorry if I kept her for longer than necessary, time got away from me-… no! Please don't schedule an office visit! I'm a busy man-… I was planning on going in for my exam eventually, I swear!"


	7. Chapter 7

A/n: For the benefit of this story some things will diverge from the books and from the show, but mostly from the books (seeing as how at my age I can't justify having these books around my house, but my online research and the feedback from you guys has mostly helped me out with that) seeing as how there are just certain things that… don't make sense to me, or in the ever expanding, complicated world of Ever After, I just can't keep up with all the new stuff most of the time (shrugs). Well this is fanfiction so as long as my head-cannons continue to be interesting and I am able to do research, I _think_ I might be able to pull these types of things off.

As for Duchess, her character by itself makes it a little difficult for me to identify with her, so I'm adding my own spin to her backstory that most likely does not completely coincide with the actual cannon character's backstory, but will make her more useful to the development of plot and conflicts.

XXX

"You think that your grandmother, the former Evil Queen, and the Headmaster used to go out back when they were in school?" Apple giggled into her hands.

"I'll have you know that I find the notion highly disturbing." Raven grumbled from her seat in the special padded chair that held her still as her blood was being filtered. And raven did find very idea of the headmaster being romantically involved with anybody, let alone her grandmother very disturbing.

At least the subject made Apple smile, something the princess hadn't done since last night when Raven had told her an edited version of what was going on (she left out the bit about the Evil Queen, and the fact that her grandmother, as it turned out, had been suffering from the same micro-talismans as Raven was) and the blonde's mood seemed to drop further still when she had shown up to keep Raven company while she was having her procedure (although Raven would admit that she wasn't exactly the prettiest of pictures while she was completely leaned back in the chair with her bodily fluids being circulated above her, the witch was rather surprised that the princess didn't faint).

"How are you feeling?" Apple asked sobering a little.

"A little disturbed, I would call my grandmother up to complain but I'm pretty sure that'll end up backfiring on me in the end." Raven grumbled, doing her best _not_ to think about her grandmother and the Headmaster _together_ (because _ewww_ ).

"I'm talking about your overall health Raven." Apple huffed amused.

"Oh." Raven stared up at the plastic tubing and the box over her head. "I'm guess I'm a little disturbed by the process, but I'm just… words can't describe how happy I am knowing that it wasn't my genetics that was making my magic evil and that these cursed talismans are being extracted out of me. It's like I'm regaining back my identity, a part of who I am."

Raven sees a flash of guilt cross Apple's face out of the corner of her eye (it was difficult to see the other's face while she was leaning back in the chair) but it was soon covered with the princess's signature smile, the one she reserved for public events, and when she tried to lecture a small group of Rebels every so often… Apple's fake smile.

"I'm glad that you're feeling that way." The princess said kindly, all emotion hidden under a Royal mask (the same mask most born into royalty knew how to wear) that Raven always had difficulty reading, making the witch wonder whether she was speaking to the side of the blonde that was her friend Apple or merely the personality manifestation of the perfect royal that Apple was training to be.

XXX

"What is up with you and this thing you've got going with Raven?" Duchess demanded as she stormed into the fairy's dorm without knocking.

"Hello to you too Duchess." Faybelle drawled, not even bothering to look up as she put her school supplies away. "Did I hear you right when you said that you suspect that I've got a thing with Raven Queen?"

"You haven't been snarling about the ruckus she caused with her actions over the weekend, you actually took the time to help her, hide her, you even went up against Apple White in a verbal smack down over her, what is going on?" The dancer demanded, Faybelle detecting a hint of worry under all the disgust and bravado.

"And due to my generous efforts I came away with all three prizes from the villain competition, the prize I won at that animal competition when Raven was my pet, elevated respect amongst my peers as a true evil villain, a very effective means to get under Apple White's skin, and… an unexpected ally in the form of one Raven Queen who now owes me personal favors." Faybelle listed nonchalantly as she took out her phone and tapped its screen.

Duchess startled when her phone rang, her eyebrows raised up high when she took it out to find that Faybelle had just sent her the picture she had taken of the perfect Apple White snarling like an enraged animal.

"All in all a fruitful weekend, don't you agree?" Faybelle asked her friend coyly. "I know that you'll appreciate the picture, do you not?"

"Is this a new thing for you?" Duchess asked slightly mollified. "You being… merciful towards Raven?"

"Yes." Faybelle did not hesitate to admit. "Don't get me wrong, I still don't approve of that Rebel cause of hers but… it has become clear to me that she is hardly a threat to my title or my family, and since she has proven to be so very useful to me on many levels I intend to tentatively begin to keep her close. Mark her as mine if you will, and in return for my mercy upon her she may very well help me achieve my goal to become the Evilest Fairy in history."

"Are you sure that going about it like this is really the right thing to do?" Duchess asked skeptically. "I mean, this is Raven Queen we're talking about here, she's… well aside from the whole Rebel thing she's basically Apple's little pet, and she allows Apple to treat her that way, surely there are other people who have more respect for themselves and who would make far more willing allies for you."

"Ah but she is useful, she's just about the one person in the world that can help my family get back at her mother for her crimes against us, and just as importantly she tends to side more to the school of logic over tradition. This is very useful to me because she is willing to help me in my endeavors as long as I use logic as my choice weapon to convince her, within goody-two-shoes reason, to take part in certain schemes that'll help make her appear more like a fair maiden and I the horrendous Evil Fairy… and, I'm certain that you cannot deny how this could benefit the both of us in the long run since it will be Apple White who will end up not only losing her desired villain but also… if we play our cards right, we might be able to make it so that you can benefit from this too." Faybelle sauntered behind her friend and took her by the shoulders.

"How?" Duchess asked scrunching up her nose and sounding incredibly dubious about the other's promise. "You aren't offering me gold painted stones now are you?" The dancer demanded, knowing that as a mischievous fairy by birth Faybelle was prone to offering deals that left one with all these expectations only to find out that everything was actually limited to the words offered in the deal or contract (which was why smart people were so thorough and clear when dealing with fairy contracts, one too many women in the old days asked for a child to magically be given to them, and when their demand was granted the child had turned out to be a changeling and those things never grew up past infant stage without the help of fairy magic and ceremonies. It was deceitful but the fairies had kept their word so no one could do anything about it).

"I know that it hurts you every time Apple white tries to make friends with you out of pity over your not having a good ending, or when she does something in those maiden classes that shows up your hard work." Faybelle began with genuine sympathy for the other, the fairy had been witness to one night too many where the swan-girl would sniffle over a picture of how her mother used to look before she got trapped in her swan form after her tale had finished, fearful that she too would have to suffer a similar or worse fate (especially since they all had a terrible scare last winter where a wild animal had tried to eat the Swan Princess, thankfully someone had happened by and realized that the swan was screaming and cursing in a standard humanoid manor and thus beat the beast off and took Duchess's mother to get her patched up).

"Why does she insist of forcing her pity on me?" Duchess hissed. "I don't want it, I hate it when she keeps speaking about my story like it's a terminal disease and that the only thing she can do is continue to laminate about how she hopes that it works out better for me, her with her perfect happy ending and her oh so perfect personality, the moment I try to make certain that things will be better for me by switching destinies with somebody else and she swoops in and goes on about my rebellious behavior! I am not a Rebel! I'm a princess who just wants a better life for myself, is that so difficult to understand? And her personality, it… it makes it difficult for me to be myself when I have to live in the shadow of her perfect example, she's so…"

"Suffocating?" Faybelle supplied giving her friend a half-hug.

"I'm from one of the few families that have suffered a lot from a fairytale, it didn't used to be that way, it used to be that once the story had finished the swans were able to move on, sometimes even find a prince for themselves to keep, but… both of my grandmother's parents ended up drowning in a freak accident, my grandfather ran out on my grandmother mid-story, and my mother can't transform back into her human form, my entire life she was unable to raise me… my family doesn't need pity, they need a new story!"

"And I'm pretty sure that Raven might be able to provide one for you from her numerous Rebel contacts." Faybelle suggested.

"What?" Duchess turned to the fairy. "But they're Rebels." The dancer stuck her tongue out in disgust.

"Rebels who don't want their stories anymore." Faybelle pointed out. "And Raven has a good standing with them, if she talks to them they may be willing to give you their story or switch out with you, it's certainly worth a try."

Duchess paused as she considered this bit of information.

"Well… I suppose that Raven isn't all that annoying to be around… and anything to get Apple to stop verbally focusing on about her perfect ending every single day and to get her off of my back about mine…" The dancer hesitated. "This isn't rebellious behavior is it?"

"Nah." Faybelle shook her head. "You're a princess Duchess, take away that whole drowning in a lake of tears thing and you are no different or no less a princess or a maiden than all the others, in the end that is the one aspect about your destiny that is the most important."

"We'll see…" Duchess narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms, attempting to tamp down on a flicker of hope springing to life in her heart.

XXX

"Daring wants to know if it's alright if he, his brother, and Sparrow visit." Apple informed, laying another blanket over Raven's legs and tucking the fabric around her shoulders. "I have to go help out with the preparations with the dance and parade so it'll get pretty boring with you here all by yourself… and I would feel better knowing if there was someone here that would get in contact with me first thing if something happens…" The princess gave Raven a wide-eyed, pleading look.

Raven grimaced. "Do I really have a choice?"

"No, but since you aren't protesting right off the bat, you won't fight me or send them away as soon as I leave." Apple smiled apologetically, carefully kissing Raven's cheek.

"Why Sparrow though? I hardly think that he would want to be here of his own free will. And on that note; why would Daring come either?" Raven sighed, resigning herself to be presented to several more people in her current state, which by Apple's initial reaction… had probably been filed under "not Raven's most flattering moments" in the princess's brain. But the witch was lonely if there was no one around with her, Maddie would be busy helping Apple with organizing events, and Kitty was doing some covert snooping around Faybelle… and if Raven thought about the tubes filled with her blood too much she kind of felt like crying.

Someone knocked on the door to the room. "Miss Queen, you have more visitors." A young intern's head popped in.

"Thank you, please send them in." Raven asked politely.

"You probably don't want to know. Even though it'll become clear once they get here." Apple assured confidently while she gathered her things and walking out the open door. "Feel better alright?" She called over her shoulder.

Raven strained her ears for new incoming voices as she shifted uncomfortably, she grumbled in annoyance as her slight movements caused her blanket to fall off her shoulders.

"Come Sparrow surely you will find me more attractive if you see me attending to my unwell friend Raven!" A familiar jovial voice proclaimed just as, Raven guessed, Daring walked through the door (her back was to the door so she could see nothing but the holo-mirror-computer and the view of the east lawn gardens from floor to ceiling windows).

"For the last time I'm gay but I'm not attracted to your type so will you just drop it?" Sparrow's voice growled.

Raven rolled her eyes, realizing somewhat what was going on.

"Now, now, don't be so hasty." Daring teased flirtatiously, Raven could see him waggle his brows and bat his eyes as he walked into view.

When Daring turned to Raven his expression went from confident and flirtatious to… odd, certainly not anything that Raven had seen cross his face before. His smile fell down to an almost… gentle stretch of the lips, and his eyes widened out exposing a great deal of the whites of them, his eyebrows raised high atop his forehead.

And then he fainted dead away to the laminated floor.

"Do I really look that bad?" Raven mumbled sullenly.

"Daring?" Dexter rushed to his brother's side.

Sparrow stepped carefully past the two brothers, looking at Raven in surprise. "Well you do look a little paler than normal, but not horribly so, I think that it was the blood-filled tubing that got to him."

"Why are you in here anyway." The redheaded musician asked looking from Raven's form to the tubing leading up to a metal box above her head.

"Apple didn't tell you?" Raven asked curiously.

"All that anybody knows is that you're here because you've been cursed or something." Dexter grunted as he propped his unconscious brother up against the wall. "And that not even a prince's …or princess's kiss could cure you." The boy blushed, standing up and adjusting his glasses.

"Years ago…" Raven hesitated, if her mother really was watching her it wasn't like the woman wouldn't figure out that Raven was being cured of her curse from the little bits of information floating around already. "Someone injected my blood with microscopic cursed talismans, making it difficult for me to practice good magics, so it has to be filtered a few times to be rid of them all."

Sparrow swore quietly under his breath and Dexter's head whipped around to look at her so fast that his glasses came askew.

"I don't really want to dwell on it." Raven stated with a pointed look. "How's about you two tell me why Daring had decided to visit and drag the two of you along."

"I came because I've been tasked to inform you that you've been nominated for Thronecomming queen." Dexter told her brightly.

"O-oh?" Raven shifted guiltily. "I'm flattered, really I am but I won't be able to make it to the dance… I've got some family matters to deal with."

"That's perfectly fine." Said Dexter understandingly. "The committee can assign somebody to stand a picture of you in your place should you end up winning."

"Thank you… that's really nice of you guys." The witch smiled at her friend.

"And what about you?" Raven asked Sparrow. "Why are you here?"

"I told Daring he wasn't my type. He hasn't gotten over it yet." Sparrow directed a poisonous look towards the unconscious blond.

"For what it's worth he still hasn't gotten over the fact that before we headed out to that true hearts dance Cupid put together, I had turned down a love poem I had mistakenly thought he had written to me. I told him that I was a lesbian and that I don't find myself even a little bit attracted to him." Raven supplied sympathetically. "He's still trying to convince me that he's at least aesthetically handsome and tenderly charming."

Dexter winced. "Again, I'm sorry about the confusion." The brunet boy fidgeted awkwardly.

"You wrote her a love poem?" Sparrow squinted his eyes over at Dexter.

"It was for Charming practice." Raven lied, not wanting to see her glasses-wearing friend get teased at the moment. "Due to some miscommunication I had thought that Daring had wrote it trying to get me to become just another mark in a long line of flings."

Dexter sent Raven a grateful look before he pursed his lips. "I keep telling him that actively tying to become the school's most popular stud is going to end up biting him in the rear sooner or later. I'm sorry if he's causing you two trouble."

"It's more funny and annoying than trouble." Sparrow waved the boy's concern off.

"He's harmless." Raven rolled her eyes, a small, amused twitch lifting her lips slightly into a smile.

Daring hummed, beginning to come to.

The next several minutes was spent with Daring trying to brush off his fainting spell and attempting to put on a brave face in spite of the sight of Raven's blood being circulated in plain view.

"Do they know who has done this to you?" The blond charming prince asked in rare seriousness, stepping forward to help readjust Raven's medical gown which had fallen a little askew, and tuck her shivering form back up in the fallen blanket.

The prince paused when he came across a section of the gown that had become untied due to the witch's uncomfortable squirming, unable to help himself he placed two fingers over the spot where he could see the thin wisps of raised healed skin of old wounds curving around the witch's side.

"Just something to remind me of… some rambunctious stuff that happened as a kid." Raven coughed nervously not looking at the prince who was staring at her curiously. "You know how much trouble little ones can get into."

"Some more than others apparently." Daring commented lightly, his face unreadable as he retied the gown and tucked the witch in more thoroughly, mindful of the tubing connected to the witch's arm.

"So… I hear you guys are going to have a game on Friday." Raven smiled as innocently as she could, directing the topic of conversation elsewhere.

XXX

"Yes I contacted the Brotherhood of Shimmy Gaba… what did they tell me?" Milton snorted in half frustration, half amusement. The monk he had spoken to had no qualms with trying to "warn" Milton off of getting into contact with "that mean demon woman" (aka. Elenore) and begged him to not send over or have his terrifying head healer call them ever again before hanging up.

So Milton had called Healer Phalange (he was not going to step a foot in her territory- the medical floors- if he didn't have to) to ask why she had called the Brotherhood and when. Predictably she didn't say much, citing that it had to do with patient confidentiality, although she did give him the vague impression that the Brotherhood had somehow earned her wrath by being far too out of date when it came to their healing practices and their incompetence had endangered a student or staff's health.

Milton could not shake the uneasy feeling that there was more to it than that but he never was able to develop the eerily accurate intuitive instincts that Elenore had cultivated so he did not know where to go from there or which student or staff member to try asking.

"They, ah, said that they were officially closing their communications to the outside world for a while… I know you said earlier that you are not permitted to tell me Elenore Queen's location directly… Giles Grimm has the clearance to find out? Ah… no he's, not available… is there anything you can do? …No? Well thank you for trying." Milton sighed as he hung up.

The old man rubbed his tired face in his hands, well that didn't get him anywhere.

He glanced sadly over to a picture sitting innocently on a shelf in his Headmaster's study, it was of him and his little brother, Giles Grimm, when they were children, back in the times where things had been better.

It pained Milton that he had locked his brother up, down in the school archives, but in the end it was for his own good, every time somebody in Milton's life went against the script he would lose them, even though the whole myth about people disappearing if they did not fill their roles was indeed a myth… there was some truth behind it in regards to the people in Milton's life.

First his mother perished by trying to rescue an old woman from the hungry mouth of a kelpie, then he almost lost his little brother on a dare, lost Elenore when he attempted to elevate his status above that of a servant to the Book of Legends by getting ambitious and leaving her to attempt to find a human wife of noble blood (a disastrous misadventure that Milton hated himself for ever attempting), lost Elenore's daughter to herself when the girl decided to take her title literally, and so when Giles started going on about how the fairytales were doing more harm than good Milton felt that he had no choice but to save his brother from disappearing too.

And now Miss Raven Queen, Elenore's granddaughter, was…

It hurt him to hear the girl say such… saddening things earlier that day, it was obvious that unless there was some kind of proof that there would be an instant danger to everyone around her, that would happen without warning she… Miss Queen would rather suffer whatever consequences would befall her if she never signed than just simply assuming her birthright.

He may have lost all chances with her grandmother, and was perhaps partially to be blamed for her mother's insanity, but he would not lose Miss Queen as well, the last hope he had to at least give back what his blunders had taken from that family.

He had no choice, Milton told himself holding up a golden wishing well coin, tomorrow he would convince the girl to stop her dangerous campaign. It would not be easy for her, but she was as strong as her grandmother, with him helping as much as he could in the background he was certain that she could bring the Queen family back their honor and become an excellent Evil Queen, there was no other choice, this had to work.

XXX

"Wow, she is dead to the world." Briar whistled as she looked down to a very still Raven sleeping soundly on Apple's float while the blonde princess worked on it. "And coming from me that means a lot."

"It takes a lot out of her to have her blood filtered." Apple cooed sadly, stopping her work long enough to sit down and brush away some stray hair that had fallen into the witch's face and to adjust the blanket more firmly around Raven's shoulders. "The blood thinners they're giving her are making her more chilled than normal and her arms are so sore from having so many needles stuck into them."

"Sounds like this curse is really serious." Cupid observed, looking at her friend and current client worriedly. Recently Raven had gone to Cupid for consultation about her feelings over Apple, the witch admitting her attraction to her Royal princess counterpart had taken the winged girl completely by surprise (albeit Cupid had to admit she was a little relieved that Raven wasn't going to be any competition for herself and Dexter) but as a future love goddess and a friend Cupid was trying to aid Raven in her effort to get over the princess, they were actually supposed to meet after Raven had finished with her healer's visit but it was obvious now that the witch was far too exhausted to do much of anything, let alone talk.

"It is." Apple stated grimly, a piece of the puzzle of how growing up must have been like for Raven clicking into place, beginning to form a heartbreaking picture. "Whoever did that to her… I don't think I can find it in myself to ever forgive them."

"That's some serious words coming from you." Briar's eyebrows rose, since Apple had taken to try to be forgiving to everybody, like her ancestor had been depicted to have done.

"This is a special case." Apple murmured with frost in her words. "They had wanted Raven to suffer even more for the things her mother did, I… think that it helped Raven learn to only hate her birthright as the years passed, made her feel like a monster instead of someone who could bring respect back into her family name. It hurt to see her all hooked up with her blood-… I don't know how I can fix all this damage that had been done to her, how am I going to convince her that accepting her story isn't a bad thing if all she has known is the bad, and the things that want to hurt her because of her heritage?" She sniffled looking up to her closest friend and to Cupid for help; her body crouched over Raven protectively.

Briar gave Apple and equally lost look while Cupid heaved a heavy breath.

"Past emotional hurts are very difficult to heal properly." The winged-girl began. "They make people shy away from certain situations and are prone to flair up in pain every so often, the best thing that I can think for you to do is to keep an open mind and line of communication with her about things and make it clear that if she wants to talk, you will be there to listen without judgment… however… I'm sorry Apple but from what I have observed… so much has happened to her that… just don't get your hopes up that she will ever sign the Book. The past has made her far too heartbroken. At this point she's more concerned about salvaging what she has left of the wreckage and finding a way to move on, and to her the only option she thinks she has that won't end up hurting her more in the end is to… just walk away."

Cupid shrugged apologetically. "All I can say is that she cares too much about you to let you go on without your story… but most likely she will find a way to give you that without her being your villain."

"I can't let that happen." Apple sobbed quietly. "Raven is my villain, she's supposed to be apart of my story she-… she just _has_ to." The blonde covered her face into her hands and cried.

No one noticed Raven flinch or the witch take a heavy sigh as she continued to pretend to be asleep.

Raven knew that Apple was going to be furious once she found out the deal she had struck with Faybelle, but despite the princess's desires Raven could not assume her inherited title, the witch hoped that one day, maybe, Apple would at least try to understand.

And who knew, she might actually prefer Faybelle as her story's villain over Raven, the fairy was more often than not the perfect example that Apple kept wanting Raven to be, and the cruel reality was that Raven was really nothing more than an insignificant person in Apple's future life (the witch doubted that the princess would want much to do with her after the fairytale) so… it could all work out.

…Maybe?


	8. Chapter 8

A/n: Ok if this chapter manages to get uploaded, I just want to warn people that I think that hasn't been receiving any comments for this fic as of Dec 10, I suspect this because it's not letting me see how many views I've gotten this week, the last time this happened people had difficulties with getting reviews to me, so if you've got something you want to comment about this chapter or last chapter please try to PM me… I'm not sure that this will work but it is worth a try and hopefully things will go back to working order sooner or later.

Once again; curses to whatever bug is preventing me from posting nice long chapters, instead now I have to chop everything up so that things stay under twenty pages.

XXX

Raven pouted as Hunter carried her on his back, she was perfectly capable of walking to wherever this surprise location was, she was all rested up from yesterday and the healers had said that they had apparently gotten the last lingering few micro-talismans out of her blood so she was perfectly healthy now, the witch said as much to her friend.

Hunter just smiled at her. "Just to be safe, take it easy anyway, I don't mind being the pack mule for a while."

"And besides that you've been shivering up a storm in that long-sleeved dress of yours." Ashlynn observed with a kind smile. "Honey, if you had to bring a shawl-wrap to class in seventy degree weather you still have a day or two to go before you are a hundred percent again."

"I guess you have a point." Raven continued to pout, burrowing herself further into her large woolen shall.

Off to the side she caught Faybelle's eye, the fairy was walking just far enough to the side to seem inconspicuous but close enough to clearly state that she was going through with her vow to treat Raven like she was fae property.

If it were a human or most any other race that was treating her in a similar manner Raven would not have put up with that nonsense for a second, the only thing that made Faybelle different was the fact that fairies actually invented a code of conduct when it came to sentient creatures that were considered theirs, a great deal of the "possessive" behavior that the fairy was going to show was mostly just that; a show, something that would keep others fairies at bay and deter all other possible threats, in return for this level of protection Raven would be expected to prove herself useful in some way or another and to keep total transparency towards the fairy so that Faybelle knew what was going on in her future investment's life.

Raven knew that she was a valuable resource and potential ally to Faybelle so she trusted that would allow for the fairy to at least attempt to let them have some form of open communication so that they could find some steadier common ground to start their marriage on.

Faybelle allowed for a small smirk in amusement and a sly wink making Raven smile shyly back at her.

"Alright student's here we are." Professor Baba Yaga called out motioning to an empty clearing. "Behold, the hall of the ancestors."

"Um professor…" Apple raised her hand. "There's nothing there…"

"Give it a moment child." The crone instructed, smugly looking over her student as a second later they all gasped as a building materialized before their eyes. "Now come along, we don't have all day for you to gape."

"This hall only appears in this plain for a few days out of the year, as you should know by now, back before Ever After castle became a school it was a stronghold in the years after Camelot fell and wars raged across the land, this building used to house pilfered magical elements from the fallen soldiers of several enemy kingdoms, but due to an accidental mix of volatile magics the building suddenly disappeared one day, only to return for a short time the next fall." The teacher explained as she led the students in through the large doors framed by columns.

Raven's eyes widened in awe as they were taken to a large hall, much larger on the inside than the outside, lined with stained glass windows, each one depicting a different fairytale character and in front of each window was a stone box. She was so entranced by the intricate artistry of the windows that she didn't notice that the Headmaster had appeared at the end of the long hall from behind a giant (real) book of some kind that propped up for show.

"Since the times of war, this hall has been heavily renovated and repurposed to house formal gifts given to you students from the alumni of this school, your predecessors, these gifts are to aid you in your future roles in fairytales." The man spoke making Raven startle slightly. "This place also houses the part of the Book of Legends that keeps the memory of the original stories of your founding ancestors, as well as an account of each individual that came after them." He said motioning to the book behind him.

That would explain why the thing was so big, Raven thought to herself as Hunter set her down onto the floor, she wrapped her shawl a little more closely to herself as she stared at the large book, she shivered but this time it wasn't because she was cold.

The Headmaster continued on about destiny… or the importance of tradition, to be honest Raven had developed the ability to tune the man out at will by now. She was more interested in why the man was making odd hand gestures and looking over to his right so much.

Apparently so were a lot of other students because noticed that both Faybelle and Ashlynn were turning their heads just as she was hers.

"Tradition is very important." The Headmaster's voice appeared closer to Raven, when she jumped and turned her head, she startled again when she found the man far too close to her than what she was comfortable with, but it did seem to gain back everyone's attention. "It is our duty to honor the ancestors and continue their stories." He stated, his words were structured for the rest of the class but Raven could tell that he was talking to only her when he spoke.

Instead of looking angry or the decency to appear like she was scolded, Raven stood her ground and squinted up at the tall old man suspiciously, her face readable enough to make the Headmaster look unusually nervous as her eyes refused to leave his until he was the first to blink and look away.

So Raven eventually found herself standing in front of her family's box and glaring down at it. All around her she could see most of her peers exclaim gleefully at the gifts they had received from their doting loved ones.

 _Most_ being the key word, Raven caught Briar scowling down at a very comfortable pillow as she held it away from her between two fingers as if it smelled bad or something, and she caught sight of Tiffany shooting something lacy and elastic at Edward Spider's head before adorning what looked like a traditional human kingdom wedding veil and irritably demanding that he tell her if there was anything in their story that involved the use of some suspiciously matrimonial items found in her box, the outburst causing Duchess to fall to the floor honking and laughing.

"Aren't you going to open yours?" Apple asked curiously as she came up behind Raven.

"No." Was the witch's reply.

"Why not?" Apple asked sounding hurt for some reason. "Don't you want to know what your mother gave you to help with your story?"

"Knowing my mother there is a fifty percent chance that she's keeping some sort of horrible trinket made from something she had killed herself and a fifty percent chance that se didn't even bother to send anything for me at all." Raven groused bitterly.

"That's a terrible thing to say about your mother." Apple scolded, still sounding like Raven's words were hurting _her_ for reasons that Raven could not understand. It wasn't like she was talking about Apple's mother so what the heck was her problem?

"My dear princess, sometimes the truth is simply terrible, there is no point in hoping that the current Evil Queen will suddenly turn into the doting mother I always wanted her to be." Raven reasoned calmly, standing up straight and putting her covered arms behind her back.

Apple crossed her arms not looking happy in the least about Raven's attitude. "Well you aren't going to know unless you open the box."

Before Raven could move to stop her, the princess had grabbed the lid of the box and took it off, exposing the contents inside.

"Apple wait!" Raven exclaimed throwing her arms around the princess and backing the two of them away fearfully.

"Aren't you overreacting just a tiny bit?" Apple gave Raven a mystified look.

"You don't know my mother." Raven said truthfully, eyeing the open box like it was about to attack.

Apparently having enough of watching Raven twitch, Faybelle walked purposefully up to the squabbling witch and princess to peer into the box Raven was attempting to drag Apple away from.

"It's a wishing well coin." The fairy deadpanned. "How terrible, perhaps the Evil Queen is set on lecturing her daughter about her behavior beyond the confines of prison."

"See Raven I told you that it was nothing." Apple giggled moving to reach her hand in to retrieve the coin when Faybelle took hold of her wrist and moved the princess's arm back to her side.

"Underwhelming as this may be, it would be best to exorcise caution when touching it, we do not know where it has been or if there are any nasty tricks to have come with it." The fairy nodded to Raven who had extracted all the handkerchiefs that Apple made her carry on her person everyday and wrap up the coin in a manner that was more appropriate for a bomb.

"Why are you acting so skittish?" Apple asked Raven while she sent Faybelle a glare, silently reprimanding the fairy for encouraging the witch's fear.

"Because I know my mother." Raven spoke sincerely, hoping that the princess would take the hint and not turn Raven's caution around the coin into an issue.

The witch sighed heavily when her hopes were proved to be in vain, the princess continued to pester over the coin her until class was over.

XXX

"Your princess appears to be either far too naïve about the terrible criminal the Evil Queen actually is, or she's unhealthily attracted to those who are destined to commit atrocious deeds towards her." Faybelle commented as she and Raven walked the empty corridors that led down to the evil-track classrooms.

"Sometimes I think that it's a little bit of both." Raven sighed. "She keeps asking me to poison her food and cackle maniacally while she eats. And she gives me these really depressed looks whenever I do something nice for her without asking."

Faybelle shot Raven a disturbed look.

"I stopped asking why." The witch shook her head when the fairy opened her mouth to no doubt express her sarcasm about the princess's odd preferences in "friends".

"She's not going to be pleased when she finds out that you disposed of that in the school's magical waste system." Faybelle pointed to the small cardboard box kept closed by the three layers of protective spells written on the thin paper strips glued to it, and being tenderly carried in the grip of a pair of tongs that the witch was holding a decent distance away from her body.

They turned into one of the classrooms; Faybelle generously opened one of the large reinforced metal containers used to store class experiments that have finished their use and must be transported to a special facility to be disposed of.

"Yeah well I'm not interested in anything my mother has to say to me." The witch stated with conviction as she carefully set her burden inside. "Though her giving me a wishing well coin instead of a magical weapon that I could use to wipe out my fellow classmates was a pleasant surprise…"

"I have no doubts that it was." Faybelle nodded seriously as she closed the lid with a satisfied flourish. "And I have no doubts that you will be glad to put this behind you."

"Indeed." Raven sighed.

"Who would've thought that there was something in this world that was capable of keeping your famous stubborn curious nature at bay." The fairy commented with false wonder as the two of them made their way out of the room.

"What do mean famous?" Raven's retreating voice could be heard by a large shadowed figure as he silently slunk into the room.

XXX

The Headmaster had been trailing Miss Queen since class had ended, mirror-pad with the video he had one of the staff put together for him tucked securely under his arm. The plan had been to follow the witch to a well of some kind where she should become curious enough to throw the coin in, the spell he had placed into the metal was designed to create a large beam of light that would allow him to discretely project a video onto and give the witch a reason to sign the Book.

Trailing Miss Queen had proved to be a little bit more difficult than anticipated, due to the girl being much faster than he had thought she'd be. Right after class she had approached Miss Hood, and after a quick conversation between the two, the hooded girl had picked up the witch and faster than he could blink the two of them had raced out the door.

It took a while before he had found her again, at one point he and his secretary had split up to cover more ground, he eventually found her in the library where she was studying a large old tome intently while writing something down onto some strips of paper with such focus that she didn't even bat an eye or look up as he experimentally walked passed her table and peered at the protection sigils she was focused on writing out. The only time she stopped her work was to pull her shawl closer to her body as if she was chilled.

His confusion grew as she continued to charge the paper, glue them to a small cardboard box, and seemed insistent on only touching that box with a pair of tongs after that, all while he was standing in plane view of her, yet he still went unnoticed.

He moved out of sight when Miss Thorn came around, the two murmuring in low voices he could not make out before taking their leave.

The walk to the school's dungeons and evil-courses classrooms had been a surprise, but as he listened in to the girl's conversation from behind the open classroom door, his confusion turned to dread, his suspicions being confirmed after the two had left and he snuck into the empty classroom.

The blue glow emanating from the open hatch of the magic-disposal container illuminated the Headmaster's grim face as he reached in to retrieve the small box, (muttering under his breath and shaking his hand back and forth after it had retreated because the containers were always kept at sub-freezing temperatures) a disappointed look crossing his face once he pried the box open (with the help of some scissors and a letter opener he had found because Miss Queen had been liberal with using glue to laminate the box closed) and saw that inside was the wishing well coin, unused and untouched.

It seemed like he was going to have to come up with another idea.

XXX

"I can already name about six princesses and four maidens off the top of my head who might be willing to switch places or give up their roles to Duchess." Raven said easily. "I'm sure that if I asked, some of them would volunteer to give her the option of taking theirs."

"Good, good." Faybelle said distractedly as she looked around uneasily.

"What is it?" Raven asked.

"I just find it strange…" Faybelle said as she looked around. "There are no mirrors down here and yet…"

"We were being followed by someone who wasn't my mother." Raven realized. "I knew I had felt someone watching me in the library, and following us all the way down here, I had just assumed that it was… _her_."

"I had thought the same thing." Faybelle said grimly, lightning sparking around her as she glared down the corridor. "The feeling stopped after we left the classroom. What do you say we go back and see if we can teach whoever it was a lesson about rudely stalking those that can beat the crap outta them?"

Before Raven could reply (about how they needn't be so violent) her phone beeped indicating that she had a message.

"We might have a bigger situation on our hands." The witch said holding up her phone for the other to see. "That was just my grandmother, she's asking me if I had gotten the note accompanied with the wand she had left in that box for me."

Faybelle met the witch's eyes, the two sharing a moment of dread.

"If your grandmother had left you a wand and a note… then who took those and left that wishing well coin?" Faybelle asked, there was an edge to her voice because she suspected that one of the individuals who were looking to try to manipulate Raven into taking the Evil Queen role had just tried their first shot at getting the witch to do as they wanted.

Raven searched her brain for any clues of her seeing anything strange or out of place that day.

"…Say Faybelle… was it just me or was the Headmaster acting awfully strangely today?"

XXX

"Ooh look girls the bookball team is all together." Apple made a show of swooning dramatically as she and her fellow maidens walked into the gymnasium. "Aren't they all just dreamy?"

"Not really." Briar shook her head, covertly giving Cerise's hand a reassuring squeeze.

"Hunter is always handsome in my eyes, and I don't particularly think that the others can pull off his outdoors-y vibe anywhere as well." Ashlynn cheerily waived to her boyfriend, Hunter immediately waved back looking love-struck.

"I'm a lesbian, none of them are dreamy." Cerise snorted out bluntly and completely unashamed.

"Who's a lesbian? Sorry me and Cupid were talking on my earpiece and I didn't quite catch what you guys were talking about." Blondie apologized. "Congratulations to whoever just came out though, as Cupid always says; there is no shame in being who you are."

"Why thank you Blondie, I prefer to be who I am as much as possible." Cerise batted her eyes innocently as she watched Apple twitch.

Apple gave the ceiling a pleading look before sharply turning to her fellow maidens. "Have you guys forgotten completely all that we are supposed to represent as damsels?" She demanded. "How are we supposed to keep up our story cannon appeal if we don't act like we are supposed to?"

"Swooning over a bunch of guys who are probably busy talking about how they are going to get their asses kicked this Friday by a team of giants is maidenly appealing?" Cerise asked flatly.

Apple made an understanding gesture. "I can see your point; but they are heroes and princes, as maidens we are supposed to recognize their inborn charm, we just covered that aspect in class last week in damsel-in-distressing."

"I was asleep." Briar pointed out.

"I dropped that class ages ago." Ashlynn reminded.

"I was trying to sneak out the window that day because I missed the cutoff date before I was able to drop that class." Cerise grumbled sullenly.

"I substitute that course with my work in the school's media mirror-sites." Blondie grinned widely while holding up her mirror-pad, which was displaying one of those sites.

Apple slapped her hand over her face. "Well could you at least _pretend_ that you are swooning like a maiden over their heroic charm?"

"No." came the chorused reply.

"Ya see, it kinda put's me in a bad position." Cerise explained. "I mean, how am I supposed to let the girl I like know that I'm inclined towards… her gender or let her know that she's appreciated if she thinks that I'm… you know…" Cerise makes a face as she flips her hand from side to side. "Not that there is anything wrong with that, it's just overall rude to be gawking so openly while you are sort of trying to be romantic with someone."

To Apple's confusion Briar leaned against Cerise, smiling happily before dragging the hooded girl away by the hand.

"I have a boyfriend so I fully agree with everything Cerise just said." Ashlynn nodded to the retreating hooded girl before walking away as well.

"I'm sorry, what were you guys saying? I got distracted." Blondie apologized as she looked up from her computer.

Apple closed her eyes as if pained and rubbed her temple. "Never mind Blondie." She sighed looking around. She felt abandoned by her own peer group, which was happening more and more often as of late, and usually the only thing that would make her feel better about it is if she spent some time with Raven. The witch may not always understand what the big deal was, but she usually had some logical advice and she at least listened.

"…Have you seen Raven?" The blonde princess asked the reporter.

"Last I saw of her she was in the library looking up protective spells so that she could make sure nothing would leak out of that coin she got from the hall once she disposed of it." Blondie said distractedly.

" _She what_?" Apple exclaimed.

XXX

"It's nothing against you." Daring explained to Cerise in a tone that felt pretty condescending to the hooded girl. "Maidens are just not equipped to handle being a bookball player."

"I have the speed, I have the strength, and I've been playing with my cousins since I was six, how am I not equipped exactly?" Cerise demanded in a dangerous tone. She was tempted to reach out and take away the piece of pizza she had offered to him as a kind offering when she came over to volunteer to help them in the upcoming bookball game that they were stressing so much over.

"She does have a point Daring. Maybe we should let her play, I mean we need all the help that we're going to get if we want to beat those giants… who Tiny says are even bigger than him." Hunter tried to diplomatically point out to the charming prince.

"That doesn't excuse the fact that she's a maiden my man." Daring stated in a jovial tone. "Have you met a maiden who plays sports? Let alone have the strength to match a hero?" He scoffed.

Hunter pointedly looked out across the gymnasium over to where Darling Charming was playing a game of one-on-one basketball with Cupid.

"My sister does not count and Cupid is not a maiden." Daring scolded the other boy gently.

Just then Tiffany walked by carrying two metal folding tables under each arm and balancing a rather heavy looking fruit bowl arrangement atop her head and a clipboard of a list of things to do carried in her mouth.

"…I'll admit that is impressive." Daring muttered, mostly because he had needed help from Sparrow to just carry one of those tables, and the fact that the blonde girl was able to sit down the tables against a wall one-handedly without squishing her fingers was something he would admit being a little jealous over. "But there is no way that she-"

"Incoming Tiffany!" Briar called out her and Cupid's basketball went wide and was coming right towards the unsuspecting blonde.

Before Daring could leap in to save the day, Tiffany jumped up, caught the ball with one hand, rolled it over her arms and across her shoulders, spun it on her finger, and then executed a little jump shot back towards the basket where the ball sailed across half the gym's length and made it through the basket.

"And she lands a half-court shot!" Tiffany cheered her orange dress swaying as she did a little victory dance.

"Nice shot Tiffany!" Tiny cheered.

"Is that enough proof for you?" Sparrow sneered down at Daring. The redheaded boy couldn't help but remember all the days his mother spent teaching him to spar with a sword, or the fact that he was one of Cerise's mentioned cousins and every time he would challenge her to a game she pretty much picked him up and twirled him around until he learned to stop challenging her and instead would make sure that she was on the same team as him when they went up against the other cousins in a game.

"I wouldn't mind it if Cerise was on the team, maybe we could ask Darling and Tiffany too?" Dexter suggested taking a little nibble out of the pizza Cerise had so kindly given him.

"Well we all have to agree that tiffany is in a world of her own." Daring huffed weakly. "But even then she's still a maiden and maidens are not allowed on the team and that's final." He sniffed opening his mouth to take a bite out of his pizza.

"Sexist jerk." Cerise snarled taking Daring's piece of pizza out of his hands before he could take a bite and storming away.

"Nice job sentencing us to an instant loss against the giants." Sparrow spat. "With Cerise on the team we could have at least put up a decent fight."

"Why didn't she take away your slices too?" Daring looked sadly around at the other boys, feeling cheated out of a slice of pizza.

"Did he really just ask that?" Hunter questioned.

All conversation was halted when Daring's phone chimed.

"Looks like I wouldn't have had time for pizza anyways." The blonde prince sighed dramatically as he began walking away. "Dex, will you be so kind as to brief me later on what the rest of this meeting was about? I have to report to the Headmaster's office so that I can help soothe Raven's fears over what her mother had to tell her from that wishing well coin she was being so jumpy about earlier."

"Well now that he's gone, and has alienated our last chance, do any of you guys have a bright idea on how we can avoid getting our butt's kicked?" Sparrow asked the group.

"I… might have something…" Tiny timidly raised his hand.


	9. Chapter 9

A/n: The bug that wasn't letting me see how many views I had gotten and any comments posted for my stories seems to have been fixed! (I hope).

I think that I've forever convinced my brain that the Headmaster should be Raven's grandfather, the thought of him suddenly finding out and being thrown for a loop is just hilarious, and the awkward conflict it creates is just… too funny.

My head-cannon of Faybelle (which apparently diverges a bit from the actual cannon Faybelle) is kind of a cross between a dominant sarcastic villain and an intelligent strategist who only lets a select few into her life and sort of feels like she needs to take care of them in her own special way, she is always plotting, planning out potential schemes that would end up benefiting her the best, highly competitive, and possessive in a uniquely fairy sort of way, if you read up on old fairy folk tails you will find that fairies as a general rule do not like it when somebody encroaches on their stuff.

It's going to be interesting to write about Faybelle and her web of influence vs. Apple and her web of influence clashing on all sorts of levels since I'm making both girls in this fic sort of leaders to their own Royal sub groups of Ever After High school, I'm thinking that Apple would have the support of the royalty Royals and heroes, and Faybelle would have most of the villain Royals or gruffer Rebels on her side, while Raven and her usual band of Rebel friends and acquaintances become sort of the unintentional middle ground that both Apple and Faybelle are trying to tug over to their side to gain leverage as they attempt to gain access to Raven's heart.

Let the cold war begin.

XXX

Raven clutched her phone anxiously to her chest; she had just received a hext from the Headmaster's office, she could guess why he had asked her to come down; and she was not too thrilled about the potential reasons why.

"Are you sure you're alright with being the unseen third party Kitty?" Raven asked the air as she walked down the hall. "More likely than not this is just going to become another senseless argument."

Kitty's eyes flashed into visibility above Raven's head. "Only if you let it be, sometimes more meaning can be stated from clearly showing that you have had enough and walking away." The cat-girl pointed out before vanishing once again.

Raven contemplated the other's advice; Kitty did have a point, most of the time she found herself trying to explain her motives to the Headmaster who had a tin ear when it came to actually listening to her.

She just wanted to put the Evil Queen destiny and anything even remotely related to her mother behind her, was that such a difficult thing for people to understand? She was _so not_ in the mood to have yet another talk with the Headmaster about it, the last time she had talked with him she had told him nothing but the truth, explained her reasons clearly, and yet he still stubbornly overlooked very key issues and continued to insist that she become the one thing she despised more than anything on the planet.

Raven steeled herself as the secretary shooed her into the Headmaster's office.

"Hello? I got a hext telling me that I needed to come here on urgent business?" Raven sighed tiredly at the ground, trying to sound polite despite her distaste over this whole experience.

"Oh Raven how could you?" Apple's hurt voice made the witch look up, she was greeted by a sight that told her that she was not the only one asked to attend this newest attempt to "shame Raven into submission".

"Apple? …And Daring, oh goody." Raven deadpanned, feeling something in the back of her mind snap.

She narrowed her eyes towards the Headmaster sitting importantly at his desk, the golden wishing well coin placed at the center for her to clearly see.

"Oh dear, I could have sworn I had disposed of that in Professor Rumplstiltskin's classroom!" Raven faked surprise. "How did it get here?"

"It was Lady Baba Yaga's classroom, and the more important question is why did you try to dispose of this in the first place Miss Queen?" The Headmaster's disapproving voice demanded.

"No, I'm pretty sure that the more important question is how you knew where I had disposed of that." Raven's face slipped into her best unreadable poker-face as she began walking towards the Headmaster's desk, ignoring the prince and princess who were now watching her in concern. "I didn't tell anyone save for Faybelle where I was planning on disposing with that coin, can you, Headmaster, perhaps tell me why I get the feeling that I have been followed for most of the day?" The witch stopped just in front of the headmaster's desk where he coughed guiltily, knowing that he'd been caught.

"Raven!" Apple hissed in reprimand.

"Perhaps you could tell us why you were just going to throw the coin away?" Daring jumped in, trying to keep a fight from breaking out.

"Yeah Raven, why would you do that?" Apple demanded. "Even if your mother is not everyone's favorite person she's still your mother." The princess scolded.

"Only by blood!" Raven barked, her mask slipping just enough to show her anger as she faced the wide-eyed princess. "She may have birthed me and therefore that technically makes her my mother, but it does not make her my mom! She was more concerned with her schemes of making the world suffer for the hurts she could never get over or seek help so that they could heal. You weren't there while I was growing up Apple, she didn't see me as a daughter, just a tool she could use so that she could hurt others to make herself feel better! She never cared about me enough to consider the ramifications that her actions against the world would have on me and my family and she certainly did not care enough to leave anything in that box for me!"

Raven placed one hand on the Headmasters desk (though she held enough control not to slam her hand down) and turned to the surprised man with her phone held up in her free hand. "I had just gotten a message from my grandmother, asking me if I had opened the box and if I liked the wand that _she_ had left for me, because my mother couldn't be bothered while she's too busy plotting her escape from wherever prison she's currently rotting in."

The Headmaster went a little cross-eyed as he stared at the message in question; he then grimaced when his gaze turned to the incensed witch who was currently giving him a very wintery smile.

"You wouldn't happen to know where that wand may currently be… would you Headmaster sir?" Raven's tone was sickly sweet.

With a defeated sigh the Headmaster gave up the fight while he was already so far behind, he opened a drawer and produced a long elegant wooden box. He handed it to Raven, unwilling to look her in the eye.

"Headmaster Grimm?" Apple gasped scandalized. "How could you?"

"The better question is; why he thought he could get away with it." Raven snorted, putting her phone away. "After all it was just the other day when you told me that you went to school at the same time as my grandmother, and that you… _"knew_ " her, surely you would have recognized her favorite wand, the one she received from my grandfather their first year here." The witch stated, opening the box to show off an elegant silver wand of an organic twig design with spells written in sand-calligraphy etched all along the handle.

Milton tensed and froze, staring wide-eyed down at the wand that he had given Elenore their first year at Ever After, back when it had been an academy, not a high school.

"Your grandfather gave your grandmother that?" Daring asked; trying to distract everyone since the situation seemed to have been diffused and he wanted it to stay that way.

"She never really got over him." Raven sighed sadly. "I don't know much about him but the most I've been able to gather over the years from little tidbits she lets slide every once in a while… They grew up together apparently, childhood sweethearts, she loved him, and she thought that he loved her enough to get over the stigma there was back then for a human to be in a relationship with a witch, but as it had turned out; love wasn't enough to keep him around, he left her in order to pursue the possibility to gain a pretty human wife of some sort of noble status so that he could gain a title or something."

"I thought that most of the students who went to Ever After back then had some sort of noble title in their background?" Apple spoke up in confusion. "Things have changed, now that the scholarship program exists and the locals who live in the surrounding forest are allowed to send their children here."

"I asked the same thing, my grandmother told me that while my grandfather's family were highly influential and wealthy… for some reason they weren't considered nobles." Raven shrugged, taking out a sealed piece of parchment and dropping it onto the desk before closing the box, then picking up the wishing well coin off of the Headmaster's desk before she turned away, not noticing that the man himself had stopped breathing and was looking her over with increasingly widening eyes.

"He just left her with a baby to take care of?" Daring asked incredulous. "What kind of horrible person does that?"

"Oh he never knew he was a father." Raven assured as she walked some distance away from the Headmaster's desk, with her back to him she missed Milton nod in agreement to the girl's statement, he certainly did not ever even suspect...

"His blatant disregard for my grandmother convinced her that she could not bear the heartbreak of him both casting her aside along with her child, that and she was starting to doubt that between his ambitions and his need for reputation would make him a decent father at all if he did accept my mother as his child, so she went far away for her pregnancy, she and her allies covered her tracks by inventing a whole bunch of rumors about her "promiscuity" that were sure to get back to him so that he would never be the wiser." Raven shrugged nonplussed. "It worked, she never heard a peep from him ever since."

"By the way, you can hide or burn that letter when we're done here if you want. Normally I would take care of things like that myself but I don't want to chance such sensitive information coming back to cause my grandmother trouble." Raven called distractedly over her shoulder to the Headmaster, more concerned with staring contemplatively at the coin in her hand. "My grandmother said that she had decided to include the real name of my grandfather in it but… I hardly doubt that, if he's still alive, he'd want to know about me, and I think that enough time has passed that it doesn't matter anymore, I've stopped being curious about his identity a while ago so really it is all for the best-… hey Apple, do you still carry around that wide-mouthed water bottle in your purse?"

With shaking hands the Headmaster slid the letter towards himself, almost tenderly tracing the black official seal of the Queen family with a finger before sliding his thumb under the paper flap to open it.

Taped to the inside of the letter was a smaller folded note.

The Headmaster hesitated.

"Raven, what are you doing with that coin?" Apple asked but she got her answer a moment later when the room erupted in a bright light.

"What in the kingdom was that?" Raven cursed, blinking the spots out of her vision.

The witch tensed, her senses picking up on something that she hoped to never have to be in the same room with ever again.

"I know this spell!" Daring grinned jovially. "It produces a column of light that you can project three dimensional images on, very handy to view all sides of my handsome face in specially compiled photographs." The boy waggled his eyebrows at the two females.

"And when a large object, such as that coin, is put in water, enough of the spell is released to uncover things hidden behind a magical glamour, such as a certain previously hidden uninvited student." The Headmaster drawled irritably as he looked at a now visible Kitty standing beside his desk. "Miss Cheshire, would you mind explaining to me why you are here?"

"We've got more important things to worry about." The cat-girl growled, her eyes wild and her hair nearly standing on end.

"Apple, Daring, get behind me." Raven ordered firmly, taking out her grandmother's wand and standing protectively in front of the two blonds. "Kitty, do you sense what I sense?"

"As if I'd ever forget the stench of the Evil Queen's vile magic." Kitty spat, looking around the room wildly as she edged towards Raven.

Recent events in the last few minutes may have given Milton a reason to believe that the world had just been turned on it's end, and that he had made some rather foolish choices in his youth, but he was far from being dimwitted enough to let his personal problems interfere when both a witch's senses and a animal-kin's instinct were set off to danger. "Miss Queen, what is it that you sense? Please tell me." The man ordered all business.

Raven licked her lips. "It's… it's my mother's magic sir, and a strong concentration of it, enough for me to practically smell it, it must be a spell of hers or something of the like, and a powerful one too." The witch motioned to the area where the Headmaster was sitting. "You'd best get away from there sir, I can't pinpoint the exact location but it seems stronger from over there."

The Headmaster stood up, pocketing Elenore's letter as he stepped forward.

"Are you far enough along in your studies to preform a search spell?" He asked as he stood next to the trembling witch.

"I'm not sure." Raven admitted. "It's not until recently that my magic has been able to work right…"

"Work right?" The man asked.

"Somebody put a curse on Raven so that she couldn't use her magic for anything but evil deeds." Daring informed, making Raven wince.

"It was awful, they had to strain her blood and everything!" Apple tattled, giving Kitty an odd look when the cat-girl kept making silencing motions. "There were these super tiny talismans and-"

"I'm sure that the Headmaster doesn't need the exact details, but thank you anyway Apple." Raven said quickly, she already dreaded the fact that the princess had probably told the entire school by now, but the way that the Headmaster was looking at her made her immensely nervous. "And I'm cured now, happy ending, I just need some time to catch up on my non-evil magical practices. Now can we please get back on track?"

"The spell in the coin won't hold up for much longer." The Headmaster murmured, eyeing the retreating glow that came out of a plastic water bottle. "Miss Queen could you direct your magic into the wand? No spells are necessary."

"Like this?" Raven asked as the script etched into the handle started to glow a very pale purple along with the pointed tip.

"Yes, excellent, now I'm going to come up beside you and grab your hand alright?" The Headmaster warned as he wrapped his large hands around the hand wielding the wand. "Good, now hold it while I use academic magic to weave the spell…"

Raven's eyes widened in awe as she watched the spell take shape at the end of the wand, she could feel something gently, but carefully so as not to be too intrusive, pick at the ends of her magic and form it into the desired shape.

"I'm going to release it now, so you might feel just a little jolt." The Headmaster warned again, quietly taking one of his hands off of Raven's and leaving it to hover behind her back. "Ready? One, two, three!"

Raven yelped when the spell released and she was jolted backwards, if the Headmaster were not there and ready to hold her up she would have fallen to the floor.

"How did you know how to do that?" Raven asked impressed despite herself.

"When they teach academic magic the instructors hire magic-user volunteers to teach us how to bend naturally occurring magic in the air." The Headmaster stated as he eyed the ball of purple magic flying around in search of the source of the strongest dark magic in the room.

All eyes widened when the ball shattered a protective case and hit the Book of Legends, toxic green magic bubbling out of the surface of the cover like oozing puss from a wound.

"What…?" Raven whispered weakly her shaking getting worse.

"Stay here." The old man ordered as he approached the shattered bookcase.

"No… she couldn't have…" Raven whimpered her eyes wide.

"Raven?" Apple hugged the witch from behind, arranging the other girl so that Raven was brought flush against her. "What's going on? Has the Evil Queen done something to the Book of Legends?"

"Impossible…" The Headmaster murmured in horror. "This can't be…"

"That's not the Book of Legends." Kitty hissed disappearing before reappearing standing atop the Headmaster's desk. "This is a forgery." The cat-girl confirmed glaring at the fake-Book that the Headmaster couldn't seem to take his eyes off of.

XXX

"We need to put together an emergency survival kit for the both of you!" Raven commanded, dragging a wide-eyed Daring and a concerned Apple behind her into her and the princess's dorm.

"Raven you need to calm down." Apple begged trying to hold the witch still while Raven moved agitatedly around the room.

"How?" Raven demanded holding up one of her old t-shirts to Apple's frame to see if it might be able to fit the princess. "You heard the Headmaster admit that forgery must have been around since before our signing, it has your and Daring's _birth names_ , do you have any idea what kind of power that the Evil Queen would have over you if she got her hands on it?"

"One, I am not wearing that. Ever. And two, she isn't going to get her hands on it, because we found out about it, and now the Headmaster can do something to make sure that nothing bad happens." Apple reasoned, snatching away yet another ugly shirt that she swore she had thrown away several times by now and throwing it over her shoulder before hugging Raven close.

"It's all going to be all right, your mother can't reach anybody from prison and I'm not going to let anybody try to hurt you for the things she's done… and Daring isn't going to let anything happen either, right Daring?" The princess soothed, very gingerly running her hands over Raven's back.

Unbeknownst to both her or Raven the zipper on the back of the witch's dress got caught on one of the princess's gloves and had been pulled down, exposing Raven's scarred back to a wide-eyed Daring, who had moved behind the witch in order to pat her shoulder.

The boy's mind shut down as he blinked bewilderedly at the sight of the witch's back. There were scars there, raised lines of pale skin that had healed over years before, the initial appearance of them wasn't horrendously shocking per se but it was enough to give the prince pause, and ask himself why the skin on witch's back wasn't smooth… and then that is where his brain finally realized that he was looking at scars, old ones.

" _Right Daring_?" Apple side kicked the boy's shin making the prince break out of his shocked stupor.

"Of course!" The boy yelped in pain. "It would be improper of me to stand aside while a friend is in danger."

Sensing that he was not supposed to be seeing what he was seeing the prince moved to hug the witch from behind, discretely attempting to disentangle Apple's glove from the dress zipper as he tried to get his brain back on topic.

Raven shook her head. "But what if she escapes? She might try to take the two of you out to get to me! What if-"

Daring almost had it… almost…

"That's not going to happen Raven!" Apple exclaimed, taking her hand from the witch's back a split second after Daring had untangled her glove, while the prince let out a sigh of relief Apple had cradled Raven's face into her hands.

"Everything will work out for you." The princess swore. "You aren't alone anymore, I- I mean, _we_ are going to help see you through all of this. You're _our_ villain Raven, and we respect you for that."

"It's much more complicated than that." Raven sighed tiredly looking down and away from the princess's eyes. "The dishonor affects more than just me, it very well might affect _you_ in an adverse way if I were to sign the Book."

"How so?" Daring asked, momentarily distracted from his task to figure out a way to zip up the witch's dress without letting anyone else know that it had been pulled down. "What dishonor are you talking about?"

"Fairytale villains have this honor code that they have to abide by, her mother broke that code with her crimes bringing dishonor onto Raven." Apple explained quickly.

"It's more than that." Raven broke free of the princess's grip on her face with a turn of her head. "My grandmother's integrity has been brought into question, if my father's identity became public knowledge his and his family's lives would be at stake, current relations with political allies and tradesmen to my maternal kingdom is hanging by a thread, other honored houses are not allowed to recognize me as an equal, the only reason why I hadn't been cast out of the line of succession was because the Queen lands are incredibly agriculturally profitable and the people never recognized my mother as their ruling monarch in the first place, that and the Good King is currently ruling over his and the Queen kingdoms as if they were one, bringing a stable environment for the common people to live in… you guys could also be facing issues with your political and trade relations from other witch's states if I were to become your villain…"

"Then we won't do trade with them if they insist on being so inflexible about it." Apple stated firmly. "It won't be a big loss, your lands produce the most and best magical plants and other items that we import already so it's nothing to worry about. And isn't all that way far into the future? Right now we should focus on where the _real_ Book of Legends is before we worry about all that kind of stuff in the future."

"Where should we start…?" Raven muttered to herself. "I'd feel much better if we knew where the Book was rather than have to worry about it getting into the wrong hands…"

Daring started rubbing the witch's back, hoping to seem inconspicuous as he tried to inch the zipper up bit by bit…

"Of course!" Raven exclaimed, startling Daring's hand up, zipping the zipper all they way closed.

"I need to talk to Maddie." Was all that the witch said before fleeing the room.

"Come on Daring!" Apple ordered jogging after her roommate.

Daring's phone beeped, warning him that he was going to be late for a previously arranged engagement.

"I can't, I'm going to be late for a date with Sandy… or was it Sara? At any rate, if you get the chance could you ask Raven if she'd be willing to help us out with the bookball game?" The prince asked, following Apple out the door.

"Raven doesn't pay bookball." Apple looked at him strangely.

"But she can use magic! And she's not a maiden so I wouldn't be breaking the hero code of conduct for allowing her to play." Daring exclaimed with a hopeful sparkle in his eye. "She's the only non-maiden that I know of that might be strong enough and willing enough to help us beat the giants. I tried sending Ginger and Faybelle hexts to see if any of them were interested, but Ginger said that she was going to be busy baking sweets for a fundraiser on Friday, and Faybelle… declined… in a way that made it clear where she'd stick the bookball if I ever tried to get her involved with this sort of business again…"

"I get the picture." Apple grimaced waiving her hands to get the boy to stop. "I'll ask her Later." She promised as she turned to catch up to the sprinting witch.

XXX

"What is the meaning of this?" Faybelle demanded with venom as she stomped up to Kitty while the cat-girl was trying to make her way back to her dorm. "I have just gotten an emergency update from that Blondie's mirror-blog thing saying that you, Raven, prince annoying, and princess prissy, all saw that the Book of Legends in the Headmaster's office, the one that some of us signed, was a fake! You seriously expect me to believe this?"

"That's because it is." Kitty growled back hotly. "If you don't believe me then all's you have to do is wait for the Headmaster to make his official announcement, or better yet, ask the fair one yourself, we all know that she'd never lie about something like this, nor would Raven."

"Why would anybody go to the trouble of creating a believable forgery of the Book of freaking Legends?" Faybelle snapped, still disbelieving.

Kitty looked up and down the mostly empty hall, but just to be safe she motioned the fairy to follow her into an inconspicuous corner. "When has the Evil Queen done anything the easy way?" Kitty hissed quietly.

" _She_ -?" Faybelle gaped appalled.

"Yes _she_ , now if you excuse me I need to get back to my dorm so that I can be useful for when my darling hatter needs to talk our witch down from running away when Raven swings by with her princess and prince to try to whisk Maddie off as well." Kitty said briskly beginning to move away.

"Run away?" Faybelle took hold of the other's arm before she could get by.

Kitty rolled her eyes. "Oh don't act like that wouldn't be an obvious course of action that she would take."

Faybelle was silent for a moment, her expression calculating.

"The moment you have the time to discreetly talk to her, send her to my room for the night." The fairy ordered.

"And why should I?" Kitty asked coolly.

Faybelle shrugged. "Because she is to be my wife, she is an investment that I am keen to get to know so that our marriage may start off on steady ground."

"The " _investment_ " part is what's got me a little reluctant." Kitty narrowed her eyes. "In Wonderland we don't need to go through all of this hoity-toity roundabout political nonsense, if Raven were a Wonderlandian all that she would have to do is declare war against her mother and train hard to become strong enough to off with the evil one's head once and for all and have a celebratory tea afterwards like a civilized person. This whole mess here with people carrying on about dishonor you can't fight your way out of, and getting all hung up about the fact that there was one bad apple in the family… that's all just so childish! And it's all a waste of time!"

"I _will_ take care of her." Faybelle swore lightly, drawing a guess as to why the other was so vexed.

"Because she's an _investment_ right?" Kitty spat in distaste.

"And she will be my wife." Faybelle pointed out. "You don't have to like it Cheshire, it's just the way things are run here, and since Raven is not a Wonderlandian there really isn't much she, or you can do to change this outcome."

"Your right." Kitty sneered, yanking her arm away. "I don't like any of this. I had better not hear any complaints about you from her." She snarled before stomping away.

XXX

"So do you two think that this Giles person might know something?" Apple asked hopeful.

"He's been in the school archives for ages doing nothing but research, he might know at least how to locate it. Right Maddie?" Raven turned to her oldest friend.

"It's definitely worth a try!" Maddie grinned at the witch while offering a cup of tea to her. "And maybe you can have this all done and gone before we have to leave on Friday after class."

"Leave?" Apple asked.

Raven's eyes widened. "Oh kingdoms I'm sorry Apple, with everything going on I've completely forgotten to tell you, you see I've got some… secret family matters to attend to over the weekend and I'll have to leave right after class day after tomorrow. I'm so sorry I didn't tell you sooner but honestly it completely slipped my mind."

"Secret family matters?" Apple repeated sounding hurt.

"I would tell you about them if I could, I swear Apple." Raven reached for the princess's free hand with her own. "But please understand that when it comes to my family… I can't tell you everything. It's nothing against you but the less people who know about our personal whereabouts the safer my father and his family will be."

"We… who is this _we_ that Maddie was talking about?" The princess demanded softly.

"Maddie, Kitty… and a person or persons that I cannot identify to you. The business we are conducting is… it's going to go on for a while so don't be too surprised if I have more of these trips that I have to go to, away from the school, and that I can't breath a word to you about. I'm sorry if I'm leaving you out but it has to be this way." Raven told her, looking at the princess with pleading eyes. "Again, if it were just me involved I'd tell you everything in a heartbeat, even if you did not completely agree with matters or were opposed to everything being done… but it isn't just about me, and I need to keep those other people in mind, please forgive me but I can't tell you anything about what is going on."

"You're talking about this business so seriously." The princess was looking at the witch in mild alarm, her hand squeezing Raven's with a force that almost hurt.

Raven bit her lip. "That's because it is a serious and… delicate issue." The witch sighed unable to look the princess in the eye.

"And you can't ever tell me what this is? Ever?" Apple asked sounding almost betrayed.

"Oh you'll find out about it eventually." The witch chuckled bitterly. "But… not yet. Just… n-not yet."

"This isn't something that's going to end up hurting you is it?" The princess demanded with an unusual protective fierceness. Mental images of that priest who partook in ritualistic self-mutilation and Raven's back combining, making the princess wonder if part of this whole dishonor thing involved some sort of ritualistic flogging. "Because if it is you can just forget about whoever you're trying to protect with your silence, I will not stand for you to be hurt! Tell me the truth on this Raven!"

The witch seemed to be taken aback by the other's tone, Raven blinked at the princess for several long moments before shaking her head and giving Apple a rueful smile. "It may hurt emotionally for me towards the end but once everything is all said and the story has come to an end… you might forgive me then." Raven said cryptically.

Before Apple could ask what the witch was talking about Kitty materialized right behind the princess.

"As touching as all this is; _you-know-who_ has asked that you head over to their dorm tut sweet Raven." Kitty informed, watching the way Apple leaped back startled, in slight amusement.

"Ah… you mean… _that person_ , person? The one I'm going to… you know…?" Raven coughed awkwardly.

Kitty grimaced. "Unfortunately. Do you need backup?"

"Thank you but no thank you Kitty. I can handle them." Raven smiled gratefully.

"You sure Raven?" Maddie asked skeptically. "The secret one is… tricky by nature as well as in design… and you never know when you may need someone to dump ice water onto any… situations."

"I'll be fine Maddie." Raven giggled a little. "You've been reading that book I gave you on those old witch folktales again haven't you?"

"I can't believe that you found that in the library." Kitty scoffed. "Lots of those stories have such of an erotic tone to them, I can't believe that they aren't banned with the amount of prudish maidens and princes prancing about."

Well none of the non-evil Royals will be caught dead reading those books because they believe that it is improper for a protagonist to be reading about antagonist witchy and fairy culture." Raven snickered.

"Sounds awfully racist…" Kitty pursed her lips.

"It's not racist!" Apple protested with an indignant sniff. "It's just not done is all. It's improper to be studying about roles that do not apply to you."

"That explains a lot…" Kitty looked at the princess as if she had deciphered something about the blonde.

"Indeed." Maddie agreed.

"Bye guys." Raven waived as she closed the door.

Apple made to follow after the witch.

"You aren't going anywhere." Maddie told Apple serenely when the princess made a move towards the exit.

"And why not?" Apple demanded cagily.

"Because you'll follow Raven, and the only one allowed to follow anybody around is _me_." Kitty bragged, appearing in Apple's path.

Apple scowled at the two, realizing that for once the Wonderlandians meant business.


	10. Chapter 10

A/n: I've been watching a lot of anime lately; think that for this story Raven might exhibit some qualities of a Japanese wife sort-of ideal intertwined with her usual independence and rebellion beliefs.

XXX

For the fifth time that evening the Headmaster reread the written statement that he had sent out along with an official video announcement that he had made with the help of Miss Lockes and her student news crew concerning the fake Book of Legends. It was silent in his office as he sat alone in his chair.

Milton put down his mirror-pad and looked around, all of his paperwork was done, the announcements about the fake Book had been sent out, the forged Book of Legends carefully boxed up with protection spells and sent away to be properly disposed of, he had tried demanding that the Evil Queen tell him where she had put the real Book but… one look at the smug face he found that his voice had left him, her face had instantly turned confused when Milton found himself at a loss for words before storming out of the imprisoned woman's sight.

The woman who, according to Elenore's granddaughter, was in fact…

He was in no shape for a mind-clearing walk. It would be bad for him to be seen wandering around the school right now, in the emotional state he was in, especially with all the questions that people would have for him… he had nothing to distract him, nothing to push back the curiosity about those written words burning a hole in his coat pocket.

The man closed his eyes and asked himself whether it was really worth knowing, whether it was really worth dwelling so seriously about the potential paternity of the Evil Queen. He and Elenore had ceased to be decades ago, the Evil Queen was still a dangerous criminal, and Miss Raven Queen was dead set (quite literally much to Milton's horror) on rebelling against her birthright title! It was just too messy and far too late for any sane man to have to deal with the responsibilities of…

Him, a _father… grandfather_! The concept just didn't seem to fit right at all.

Why should he be so concerned about this? It hardly mattered anymore didn't it? After all it wasn't like it would change anything…

Milton smacked a hand over his face at the absurdity of those thoughts, taking the folded up note out of his jacket pocket as he did so, of course it very well _mattered_ , it mattered a _hell of a lot_!

The larger piece of paper contained Elenore's written polite explanation as to why she was giving her granddaughter something and not the girl's mother, expressing her sympathy and apologizing for her daughter's behavior, an explanation as to the backstory about the wand and why she had decided to give it to Miss Queen (apparently Elenore believed that Miss Queen would become some sort of forest enchantress for a few years after she signed the Book and the whole Evil Queen business was finished with. Obviously this letter had been written long before the Rebellion) before continuing on to the matter Milton was most concerned about.

 _I do realize my beloved granddaughter that you had always been interested in your grandfather's identity, the man I have claimed in the past to have been the_ _love of my life in the same breath I always cursed his existence. I know that parallel between love and old heartbreak often confused you, your father raised you well, raised you to the point where you knew from a very young age that my feelings towards your grandfather were as complicated as ever even after years of being apart, you were always such a polite little one who bit your tongue when it came to your grandfather so as to not cause me undue pain in remembering._

 _The fact is that I had buried that relationship long ago, under other circumstances I would have told you his identity the very first, and last, time you had asked, but you see child it is far from being that easy for me to have just simply told you, for your grandfather is, in fact, someone who will be close by to you for quite a while, and I do not want there to be any unnecessary feelings of loathing towards him from you for my sake, nor do I want you to be heartbroken if he turns out to have stayed the man I had cut things off with rather than going back to the man I once was in love with. It would be unfair to both you and for him due to the fact that he is still completely oblivious as to the fact that he is a father._

 _And forgive me beloved child but I'd like him to remain oblivious._

 _However you are by witch law an adult, and when you had asked me about the identity of your grandfather all those years ago I had promised to tell you when you were an adult. I always keep my promises and there is nothing different about that this time, I trust that should you choose to read the additional scrap of paper provided, you will most likely be attempting to forget that you ever found out about who my first love was, I find it amusing how no matter how long you are exposed to your other grandmother you still swear to every deity in existence that you will eventually invent a cleaning agent for your brain to clear you of the things about her_ _private life that disturbs you, but I know that you will keep mum about all of this and hopefully find enough peace from the truth to move on, just as you have always had to do I'm afraid._

 _If you need to talk abut it you may call me and if I am well enough I might be able to pick up the phone myself to answer you._

 _Best of hopes my lovely grandchild I will always support and love you no matter what._

Milton blinked a few times to hold back the tears welling in his eyes. His past mistakes hinted about from the viewpoint of the one he had loved the most… the one he had given up before realizing his erroneous mistake and by then it had been too late… it hurt to know at least a little bit how much he had hurt her. Milton had never forgiven himself for pushing Elenore away; she had made him happy and the things that he had forsaken her to achieve had done nothing but made him positively miserable, if he had just realized that sooner instead of being so blasted-ly stubborn he could have been happy in those first years he had been Headmaster instead of becoming "grumpy Grimm", the mean Grimm brother that students used to avoid like a scary story and he used to avoid the students like the the plague.

And because he had been so ruthless towards his students to counteract his bitter heart two of his students had ran away to gods knew where and ancestors knew that Milton still woke up in a cold sweat at the fear of someday, somebody finding the picked clean bones of those two little girls… not that their mother would ever let him forget them, no, she sent him flowers every year on the day of their official disappearance just to make sure that he _never_ forgot.

And then there was Elenore's daughter…

Giles had always felt like he had some blame in how she had turned out, and it was true that the two of them had pushed her hard, but it had been Milton who had pushed her to a breaking point, Milton who had looked down on her in distaste for no reason aside from the fact that she was Elenore's, Milton who had refused to protect the girl when she had asked him for help from those who bullied her, and it was Milton who had done what he could to make the girl stay when her mother tried to pull the girl out of the school.

The Evil Queen may have inherited her title from her mother but her behavior, her cruelty, hatred towards everything and everyone… _that_ was something that she had learned from him and him alone.

It wasn't until after the poisoning of so many worlds and the reports of the Evil Queen's merciless conquering of anything in her way that it had finally hit Milton of the thing that he had helped create, formed under the force of his own pain directed at one little girl, turned vengeful woman, for practically no reason at all.

He was supposed to be the servant to the Book of Legends, the one who guided the future children of stories to their destinies with wisdom and a kind hand.

He went against the script, and now he was paying for it.

He had gleaned plenty of evidence from Miss Queen and the note to know _who_ the Evil Queen's father was (and he was certain that a paternity test would back up his suspicions)… the question was whether or not Elenore deemed telling her granddaughter the truth at all necessary. Or whether she preferred that the younger witch never know that Elenore even knew Milton back then.

The man took the smaller folded piece of paper and detached it from the larger, finding himself curious as to why there seemed to be something of a stiffer texture hidden within it.

The photograph, he remembered, had been taken by Giles, just after a young Elenore had given a young Milton his first romantic kiss (he had been kissed chastely by Elenore before, and by a few maidens who had been put up to it by their parents so that they may win his father's good graces, but that kiss had been the first one he experienced that had passion and had him at such a loss for breath he nearly fainted) despite the black and white of the old photograph it was obvious that Milton's younger self was beat red which had seemed to please Elenore greatly if the smug look on her face were anything to go by.

Milton trailed a finger over Elenore's frame, he remembered this photograph… but he had thought it lost when he threw away everything that had reminded him of Elenore (which had been almost everything he had owned seeing as how the witch had been such a big part of his life).

Raven Queen was his granddaughter.

And she didn't have a clue and _she didn't care_ to try to find out about him.

Milton covered his face in his hands and focused on breathing.

XXX

Duchess's eyes widened when she got a hext from Faybelle, Apparently Raven had pulled through with that whole "proving herself useful" thing.

Because next week the witch had arranged for the dancer to talk with other maidens who were interested in giving up their happy endings, _to her_.

She timidly let the flicker of hope inside her heart waver a little longer than usual.

XXX

Raven timidly knocked on Faybelle's dorm room door, fidgeting with the bag of overnight supplies as she did so, feeling nervous despite having been there before.

"Oh good, Kitty has kept her word." Faybelle stated first thing when she opened the door. "Come on in dearest, you look like you've had a rough day, care to unburden those woes to me, perhaps beginning with a certain book?"

Raven nodded as she walked in, dutifully beginning to speak about everything that had happened since she had departed from the fairy earlier that day.

"So you're hoping that this old man that has been locked under the school will help you find some answers." Faybelle asked curiously from her spot lounging on her bed, her head tilted to the side.

"It's worth a shot." Raven shrugged, twirling her fingers together as she stared at the other from beneath her lashes.

"I guess it is." The fairy finally relented, mentally admitting to being begrudgingly impressed by how quickly the witch was starting to try to figure out ways to seek out the real Book herself.

"Will you be willing to tell me where you might find the Book once you are finished with the old man tomorrow?" Faybelle asked in a way that sounded more like an order.

Raven nodded. "Sure, it's important that we at least try to find out what happened to it… you will end up signing for two rolls soon…"

"Come here." Faybelle motioned for Raven to sit beside her on the bed.

The witch cautiously did as she was told, giving Faybelle a questioning look.

"You're the one who wanted us to seek common ground for our marriage." Faybelle pointed out. "Things seemed to go well the last time you stayed here, I'm curious to see how well we can try to recreate that."

"We barely spoke while I was here last time." Raven furrowed her brows.

"Yes but we did not get on each other's nerves, and the times that we did talk we managed to have a civil conversation. That's progress in my book compared to how we used to interact." The fairy countered. "Let the silence be at least comfortable and as we go along through the night, I'm sure that we'll find little things to talk about, get to know each other through being in close proximity."

"You're really taking this seriously." Raven realized.

"As are you I'd like to point out." The fairy tipped the witch's chin up with a finger. "I'll admit I am pleased that I didn't end up finding out that you had spirited yourself and Ever After's favorite future royal couple into the night after you had found out that the Book was gone, perhaps currently in the hands of something nefarious."

"I will make those two emergency runaway kits, just incase." Raven grumbled. "I've seen Daring try to make his own fire by himself after a dare he had made with Hunter… it didn't end well…"

"I heard about that from Duchess, didn't a few people end up getting set afire?" Faybelle asked contemplatively, she knew that Duchess was miffed that her favorite scarf got chard; luckily the swan-girl was dancing on a lake at the time and had simply taken a plunge. She never forgave the prince once it had come out that he was the one who had started the pandemonium.

Which was a good riddance as far as Faybelle was concerned, she did not approve her friend coveting the dimwitted human, even if it was merely because Duchess thought that perhaps she could steal Apple White's story if she had snatched the prince for herself, and considering her friend's actual… preferences that would have turned out badly for Daring, though it wouldn't be the first time a girl had to manipulate a heart to get what she wanted.

"He got desperate and tried to cheat, so he brought out a mechanical lighter, Professor Jack B. Nimble came along, Daring startled when the man leaped over him, the lighter went flying, and that was one of the few times I was able to use my evil magic for good when I simply bent water out of the lake to drench everybody who was on fire." Raven sighed, she didn't even know how one little open flame could cause so much havoc to an area by a lake with wet grass all around and it was an even bigger mystery why only people were set on fire and not surrounding vegetation and why those people didn't simply stop, drop, and roll like people on fire are supposed to do to put out the flames.

"It was a good thing the lake was nearby." Faybelle hummed. "I'm guessing that the fair princess isn't much better."

"She's so good with animals, and she says that she likes walking in the woods but one splotch of mud on her shoes and she's heading back home." Raven grumbled. "Which makes it difficult to ask her to take a walk with me after it rains. She does end up going with me but she hates wearing the galoshes I got her where they'll get dirty."

"Has she not heard that galoshes are made for mud?" Faybelle asks with a raised brow, mentally taking notes for future reference in case the princess turned out to become something of a nuisance later on.

"They're white with red, yellow, and green apples on them." Raven explained. "She loves them don't get me wrong, but she prefers wearing them on the sidewalk and not in the dirt."

"I'm surprised that she wears them so proudly since you got them for her out of kindness." The fairy wondered, she was always confused whenever she overheard the princess reprimand the witch for doing nice for her, Briar was always damn grateful those incredibly rare times Faybelle deemed that she do something out of respect to the princess she would one day put to sleep and not ask for anything in return, and Faybelle never laid _much_ of a malicious finger on her princess (an obligatory little deviousness towards her but not too much), that could wait until the story came about, and even then it was always necessary for an Evil Fairy to show respect towards the princess during the story, that was part of the Thorn clan's honor code.

"I've learned that if I don't announce that I've done something nice for her, like with the galoshes, I left them for her to find in her closet, she draws up her own conclusions and she appreciates those things more, most times she thinks that it was one of her friends who gave her those things but sometimes she finds out that I had given her gifts and because I didn't say a word about it she lets it slide." Raven shrugged as if it was just something to be expected.

Faybelle put an arm around the witch and took advantage of Raven's momentary shift in focus from her face to her arm draped around the witch's shoulders to give the ceiling a very pained eye roll because _holy ancestors almighty_ did Apple White have such a (false) _complex_ about what was proper for a villain, it was a good thing for the princess she had the witch so whipped and that Raven was so nice about it! If it had been Faybelle she would have made the idiot blonde cry long ago by making it absolutely-fucking-clear that she was going to do her own damn thing, in a way that was her own damn business, and the princess could just kiss her ass if she wanted to turn her into some sort of plaything, like she had done to Raven!

She was going to have to break the witch of her allowance of this, as well of these feelings that the witch had for the princess, they were causing Raven to allow degrading things to be done to her by Apple and as _Faybelle's bride_ that will not stand! Perhaps Faybelle could get the witch to turn her attentions and gifts onto Faybelle, and Faybelle only, from what the fairy had heard so far that would be more proper behavior for a wife to adorn onto their spouse than it would to some preppy high and mighty who didn't have the brain capacity to appreciate the acts a single bit of it.

"I'm really flattered that she likes the shampoo and other body care products I make even though she had been stealing some from my shower kit for weeks before I found out she was the reason why I kept running so low, now I make double the batch each time I need more so that there will be enough for us both." Raven continued oblivious to Faybelle's silent fuming because the princess had dared to try to reprimand her that one time she caught Faybelle sneaking some extra sweets that Ginger had made (her old witch friend specifically made extra because Ginger knew Faybelle well enough to know that the fairy would be sneaking her sweets on general principal and old habit) for some bake sale, telling Ginger to stop making extra for Faybelle, and here the princess was swiping her roommate's stuff!

 _Preppy blonde hypocrite_!

"Question; if you had decided to run away from Ever After High, would you tell me?" The Fairy asked trying to be smart by changing the subject before she was tempted to say unkind things as to how Raven was letting Apple treat her. So undignified for a villain, but then again since Raven wasn't going to be a villain for much longer so Faybelle was curious as to how she could direct the witch's strong loyalties to attach to her and not the princess, it would be very useful in the long run to have a doting, loyal wife to go home to.

"Well yeah, I mean it would be pretty hard to elope and everything if you didn't know where I was." Raven proclaimed as if it should have been obvious.

"It'd be better if you came to me anyway if you wanted to run away, as a malevolent fae I'd be the logical choice to help spirit you away… which I just might have to if people find out about our marriage too soon…"

"Let's hope that doesn't happen then." Raven pouted. "I've grown fond of this place, despite all the people who are trying to turn me into my mother…"

"If we successfully get through half of this ritual all rights to the Evil Queen title will be mine, if anybody gives you grief afterwards enough of the ritual will be completed that you can transfer to a witch academy as my wife and not the daughter of the Evil Queen." Faybelle bargained. "It'll be a change but I think that you could adapt to the different environment pretty well."

"Thank you." Raven said sounding properly grateful, which stroked Faybelle's pride slightly.

"Yes, yes, now onto another topic… I heard you say earlier in this conversation that you make your own bath supplies?" Faybelle asked curiously.

They continued their light small talk well into the night, both surprised that they had been able to find several something's that they could talk about without the air in the room growing too tense.

XXX

Apple sat at the edge of her bed early Thursday morning staring at Raven's empty bed, feeling partly hurt, partly irritated, and partly hungry (she hadn't had the stomach to eat much of her dinner) about the fact that the witch had spent the night somewhere else but could not tell Apple about it because apparently Apple wasn't apart of this special select few people that Raven trusted enough to talk about private things involving her life.

Apple was worried; Raven's words last afternoon were so ominous! Like a big change was about to happen and since Raven didn't trust Apple enough to tell her anything the princess wouldn't find out about it until it was too late to do anything if this mysterious business would become adverse to Raven!

Apple didn't know what to do…

XXX

What was he supposed to do? What was he supposed to do? It wasn't like there was some sort of rulebook about this kind of situation, not a single proper form or etiquette mention in all that accursed training he had put himself though to become one with polite society…

Stalking up and down the hallway where Miss Queen- … his granddaughter's locker was located probably wasn't the best way to go about things, what was he to say to her? She had already made it clear that she did not care to know her grandfather's identity, and it wasn't like he knew himself whether or not her knowing would be for the best, that and her grandmother had been very specific in saying that she did not want him to know, did not want him apart of her family's life for anything aside from the strictly necessary.

And Elenore was not the type of person to be challenged when she made a decision. Not. Ever.

He highly doubted that the Evil Queen would be nearly as keen to know that he was her father; there was a very large possibility that she might despise him even more than she already currently hated him.

If Milton tried to gain the right to get to know his granddaughter… well for one thing he had no grounds to get parental rights in the first place, and for another there was probably no witch court in existence that would be at all sympathetic towards him, there was enough evidence lying around proving that he would make a very unfit father… hex Milton wouldn't be surprised if he lost his current job once certain fact about missing students, unlawful imprisonment of his brother, and mistreatment of his ex-lover's child came to light.

And all of that would not put him in any of Miss Queen's good graces that was for certain.

He could argue that he had some right to claim her as his granddaughter due to her being the heir as the next servant to the Book of Legends.

But he and Giles had already gotten around that by appointing that new guy in an elaborate ceremony to become their successor… what was his name again? Milton hardly remembered that night very well, between the realizations that Elenore had been the best that he was ever going to get as far as happy relationships went, and that the only thing that the human aristocracy wanted out of marrying their daughters off to him (many, to Milton's horror and heartbreak had either been practically dragged to him kicking and screaming by their parents or were so obviously scheming pretty little monsters who Milton could tell from a mile off were trying to get something out of him) was to gain access to the power that his family had for their own agendas and not the future benefit of fairytale characters (in fact several lords seemed to have ideas that would have harmed many students coming in from certain worlds), so one day when it had become clear that neither he nor his brother were going to reproduce, Giles handled all of the arrangements, gifted Milton with a flask of something strong to get him through the night and by the time Milton woke up the next morning the ceremony for a new successor had been completed and he had a bleary memory of the whole thing.

Actually Milton hadn't heard a peep from new guy in years… which was odd, Milton was getting up there in years and it would become necessary soon to start training a successor… maybe he should look into that…

"Are you alright Headmaster sir?" An all too familiar voice piped up from beside him.

"Pardon Miss Queen?" The Headmaster jumped a little as he looked down to the concerned face of Raven Queen.

"You're leaning against the wall and clutching your chest." The girl pointed out, her eyes filled with worry. "Have your limbs gone numb? Does your chest hurt? Do you-?"

"I'm not having a heart attack Miss Queen." The Headmaster shook his head with a small smile; the situation amused him for some reason. "I'm just…" he paused mid-lie, remembering that the girl could read faces. "I _have_ been trying to sense out where the Book might be, as the servant to the Book, and coming from a long line of people with this duty… I am connected to the Book in ways that are bound by blood, some people in my family have the inborn ability to sense if the Book was nearby or taken off campus."

"You can?" Raven's eyes widened.

"When I was younger and when my father brought the Book off campus to have myself and my- to get me acquainted with it. I was able to sense it then, but Ever After High's natural ambient magic makes it difficult for me to do this, it… camouflages the signature I guess you could say.

"I think I know what you're talking about." Raven nodded in understanding. "When I was very tiny a family member took me along to witness the ceremony of the future Headmaster of this school being bound to the Book. I know that I had felt the presence of the Book because my family member told me that the room was specially purged of all magic, but there was a magical presence there, and it wasn't me, I remember that pretty clearly."

"You were there?" Milton asked with sudden interest, only the old families from non-fairytale backgrounds were allowed in on that ceremony.

"That family member was… and is hoping that I'll take over their position when I'm grown." The witch looked away shiftily. "That was why I was allowed in."

"I see." The Headmaster made a note to look up the list of those who had attended. "And how did this presence feel to you?" He asked kindly, knowing that as his granddaughter she had the inherent ability to sense the Book of Legends like he himself did.

The girl smiled like she was remembering a happy memory. "It was warm. I remember that it was warm like… a hug given to you by a family member that you adore, and sunshine!"

Well there was no doubt now that the witch was Milton's granddaughter.

The warning bell rang breaking the witch's focus.

"Are you sure you're ok?" Miss Queen asked him skeptically.

"I'm perfectly capable of calling for help if I do have heart attack symptoms Miss Queen, now go on to class before you're late." Milton felt a fond smile invade his face.

"Alright…" The girl gave him one last look over before leaving.

"Excuse us Headmaster." Miss Apple White and Mister Daring Charming followed Miss Queen as they walked by him, both giving him dirty looks before walking faster to catch up to the witch.

Milton sighed realizing that he had probably lost some respect from the future king and queen of Ever After… and that he probably didn't have that much respect to lose from Miss Queen in the first place and that was why she was being so nice to him.

The man grimaced wondering if Miss Queen had talked to her grandmother about yesterday's… misadventure. Wondering if the older witch would be ticked off or just irritated, either way she probably hated him too much to be really all that disappointed at this point.

For some reason that thought just made him feel more depressed than ashamed.


	11. Chapter 11

A/n: I'm going to attempt to begin introducing some disapproval from several different sides.

Maddie and Kitty would not be approving of either Faybelle or Apple as possible love interests, Apple perhaps slightly less so because she appears to be willing to put duty and fairytales above Raven's wellbeing (which is opposite of Apple's view because she seems to be under the impression that Raven must acknowledge duty and fairytales for the sake of Raven's wellbeing). And I'd imagine that more than a few other people in Raven's inner circles would find themselves opposed to either candidate.

Those in support of Faybelle would be a mix of people who understood fairy and witch law rather well and understood that a token marriage is just that; a token, and are in support of Raven finding a way out of her predicament while Faybelle gains a new title and new prestige that would be beneficial to the family, and people who know Faybelle well and think that Raven would be good for her.

I'm still trying to figure out which characters would be in support of Apple as a love interest for Raven but I don't think that would become exceptionally apparent until later in the story when more conflict arises between Apple's worldly ideals and the realization that she's going to have to be more observant to other's views if she wants to keep Raven in her life.

XXX

"What did he say Maddie? Kitty?" Raven asked bouncing on the balls of her feet. Giles, the man who lived under the school, was cursed to speak nothing but riddlish, a purely Wonderlandian dialect that, while normal in Wonderland, would cause the man problems if he were to walk out of his archive prison and into the general populace of Ever After who could not speak the language.

Maddie hadn't voiced it out loud but Raven got the feeling that unless one could prove that they were from Wonderland, and thus were supposed to act crazy… there was a very real possibility of Giles being picked up by authorities to be taken to a home.

From experience Raven knew that the Wonderlandian refugees _despised_ the care provided in commoner elderly and asylum facilities in many of the human kingdoms, had cursed at them, often in riddlish, with a vengeance. Some of it had to do with the pre-Alice-or-fairytale era when Camelot fell and the wars for control over the land broke out amongst the humans, with all the combat and stray magic flaying every which way in all the chaos several portals opened into Wonderland, the biggest being in Ever After, and the first instinct of the human kingdoms had about the strange new lands of Wonderland was to try to conquer them.

Suffice to say the Wonderlandians wiped the floor with the invading barbarians, Wonderland having a history of being an extensive scary warrior culture from the very beginning, the fact that the Wonderlandians had the idea to contact all the human kingdom's enemies (the witches, fairies, other magic users, and anything not human) to fight off the enemy from their lands, and the madness that was natural to the world itself and all that, being major reasons. But one of the things that the humans in Ever After did that had Wonderlandians for generations on up to the present spitting mad and cursing heartily was that the human invaders had captured unsuspecting Wonderlandian human civilians (since the talking fish and such were simply killed for being "abominations") took them back to Ever After and the other human kingdoms, and put them into insane asylums.

Wonderlandians still whisper about the horrors that transpired in those asylums, and Raven wasn't surprised that they were being so touchy about the subject of any kind of mental therapy outside their homeland, she had heard the stories and read the books on the subject, so the witch did not blame them one bit for being weary of how outsiders went about psycho-analyzing people's minds.

"He says that we'll be able to find something he can use to help start finding the Book, it's hidden in the pages of that giant memory book thing in the hall of the ancestors." Kitty explained. "He also warned us that in order to get to it we need to step into the giant book and search through our stories of fairytales for these eight pages that we need to bring back here, but it could be dangerous considering how some of our tales started out under dangerous circumstances."

"That or he's hungry for some bacon and eggs." Maddie piped up with a shrug. "Riddlish isn't an exact verbal science."

"How do we get over there unseen?" Daring asks searching his brain for any possible times that they could do this without arising suspicion.

"There's the parade this evening, Daring and I's floats are first in line so we can sneak out early after we dock ours and go over to the hall while everybody else is busy with the parade… and I don't think that the rest of you have a float in the parade actually…" Apple gives Raven a pointed look. The two of them had already had this discussion on and off for the past few weeks about Raven's participation in the parade, which Raven was decidedly not going to do because aside from Apple, the Headmaster, and maybe Daring (although she'd classify him more as a neutral party who didn't really care much about the issue as long as he still looked good enough to make the maidens in the crowd swoon) no one was going to gladly celebrate any sort of tribute to the Evil Queen whether it be a float or stuffing Raven into an itchy outfit covered in a crap ton of feathers and incredibly difficult to walk in (why Apple ever thought getting her that monstrosity was a good idea Raven would never know) and having her hold a limp Apple in her arms as the princess plays poisoned (which Raven had to point out more times than she'd like to think about).

Apple had actually been pretty understanding about the whole thing, a little disappointed that not even her powers over the public could sway them into appreciating just how much she enjoyed the idea of Raven doing deceitful things to her and actually having them celebrate that concept (Raven had to bite her tongue because the last time she suggested that the princess see one of the better shrinks that the witch knew Raven had been in _soooo much trouble_ ).

The resident Wonderlandians didn't make their own floats either; neither did they express much interest in participating in anything save for the background setup and the dance. They did not see the point of having a parade when no battles had been won, and no battle victories were being remembered, especially since the resident Ever After bookball team was laughably terrible at winning anything, and most Wonderlandians viewed bookball as a whole as a kind of sissy sport, which coming from a culture where gladiator matches to the death between man and some of the nastiest beasts found in Wonderland were still legal and highly popular attractions (especially when their own brand of justice came in where they had the rule of; "if you survive this and defeat your opponents your crimes will be expunged", apparently the coliseums were _packed_ for court case days) did in fact make the whole game of bookball look ridiculously tame by comparison.

"So we are agreed that we will all meet in the hall this evening, myself, Maddie, and Kitty will be there as soon as people start congregating to the parade and we will wait for you guys until you manage to slip away." Raven confirmed giving Apple the best innocent smile that she could muster.

"And if you guys aren't there by seven o' clock then we'll start without you." Kitty stated firmly, crossing her arms and giving the princess a glower.

"Which will be helpful to note that at least three people will know where we are." Maddie added diplomatically, giving the blonde a pointed look.

Apple shifted uneasily under their combined stare. "Understood." The princess nodded reluctantly. She didn't know why but the two were… acting a little hostile towards her for some reason, like she had done something to offend them but they didn't want to be kind enough to tell her what it was.

XXX

Faybelle checked her phone when it beeped indicating that a certain witch had sent her a message.

The fairy scanned over the information about how the meeting with the man, Giles, went and the location and time they were all going to meet at the hall, the witch expressly requesting that the fairy come up with a viable excuse as to why she was there since the little witch was smartly keeping the preppy princess out of the loop in regards to their sudden closeness to each other.

Faybelle gave a satisfied smirk, her sharp little teeth showing just enough to look unnerving and her face shifted into something that was more akin to her prehistoric predatory ancestor's appearance, the sight that she made walking by causing the annoying geeks, Humphrey and Dexter to bolt out of her way and stand by the lockers, attempting on trained instinct to make themselves look smaller and appear unappetizing.

"Trusting me with her little adventures already?" The fairy let out an airy laugh. "Maybe there's some hope in this arrangement after all."

XXX

"So… are you guys going to tell me why the two of you are being so hostile to Apple lately?" Raven asked as herself, Kitty, and Maddie marched through the woods leading to the hall of ancestors.

The two Wonderlandiands exchanged a look before Kitty spoke up. "Her disrespect towards others needs and beliefs has resulted in some majorly annoying consequences that this clan now has to deal with by going out of their way to conduct a shady business arrangement in secret." The cat-girl growled supremely irritated.

"We know that Apple has her own views of how the worlds are run and that she is under a lot of pressure to conform to a perfect ideal." Maddie interrupted before Raven could speak in the princess's defense. "We know that you care for her, love her enough to want to see her happy, but Raven, she does not have to keep you likes this, it was her choice to continue insisting that you be her villain when she could have just as easily asked for a new one to take your place, she constantly hurts your feelings when you don't act like this non-existent ideal of what a villain supposed to act like, breaks your heart when she insists that you are nothing but a blood born tool who must become the very thing you despise or she will throw a fit."

"And you know better than us just how many tantrums she has thrown in your presence to try to get you to bend to her will. Rather undignified for a future queen that." Kitty points out.

"And has she ever asked you for the reasons why you want freedom? Really, truly, sat you down and asked you? Ever tried to attempt to understand your culture and think about how this all is affecting you? Just how weak her promises of everything being set to rights if you signed the Book are? Especially in the same breath she reminds you that yours is an unhappy ending, which in your case is far more serious than she is willing to believe, she demands that you become a personality that you are not, often rejects the nice person you are in favor of trying to change you to an unhappy terrible person, and to top it all off you are the one who always ends up harmed the worst when in her attempts to shame you under her control whether in private or in public, because she knows that it breaks your heart whenever she starts to cry, and she knows that you are the one who gets grief for making her cry." Maddie listed out her tone turning more and more angry and disgusted as she continued on.

"So what are you saying?" Raven asked scowling at the ground in front of her.

"We're saying that we are tired of you making excuses for the not-so-fair one." Kitty grumbled. "She made you hide from the world for _days_ because she couldn't be bothered to stop and think about your feelings long enough to realize that you didn't want to become her evil little pet for the weekend and now because she won't give you up like a sane person you have to _secretly marry_ _Faybelle_ of all people to escape her and her blasted happily ever after! Face it honored sister, your supposed "friendship" with Apple is unhealthy for your wellbeing, and it's continuation worries us, it worries your clan Raven."

"We're not saying that you should stop seeing her." Maddie clarified. "Just start drawing lines, create enough distance between herself and you so that you can breathe, perhaps even better prepare yourself if all her promises for friendship turn out to be false. If she starts in on you being a bad guy, in any capacity… perhaps you should just walk away, do not give her the chance for hope by dignifying her actions with a response, let your silence and your refusal to give her any rope to hang onto be your voice on the matter."

Raven blinked back the sting of her eyes, looking at the two's honest and concerned faces in resignation.

"You think that I should stop hoping for the two of us to at least have a companionable friendship." The witch swallowed thickly. "You think that there is no hope for it at all… that I should bury my love for Apple and cease to let it… persuade me to think that I have any redeemable relationship with Apple at all?"

"A friend is someone who cares about you, who is wants to see you happy and wishes to support you in whatever you choose in life's path, and at least tries to understand why you do the things you do… does that sound like any actions that the fair one has taken towards you?" Maddie asked, looking at Raven knowingly.

Raven opened her mouth, tried to think of a time that Apple had been happy when she knew it was Raven who had taken care of her when she got a cold, that it was Raven who made her un-poisoned sweets, that it was Raven's kind words and listening ear that made Cedar stop feeling so blue about eventually having to figure out how to lie to get a real body, that Apple even attempted to understand that Raven had been miserable before she denied her destiny, that Raven wanted a chance at a better life of good and not evil, that Raven did not want to be hated or feared.

"She's really worried about being good enough to be Snow White, and not disappearing." Raven tried weakly.

"We know, but is that knowledge enough to tide you over when she demands that you poison her food and revel in other's fear of you?" Kitty gave the witch a pointed look.

Raven looked down to the ground. "No." She said quietly, heartbroken. "No it isn't enough."

Without another word the three entered the hall of ancestors.

Appearing from behind a thick tangle of trees Sparrow Hood regarded the front doors of the hall with furrowed brows. He had been in a slump recently, unable to come up with any decent new songs, so he had taken a walk in the woods to clear his mind… and stumbled across something he probably shouldn't have overheard…

"Well damn." The boy murmured, not having much to say on the subject, never in a million years would he had thought that goody-two-shoes Apple was… abusive? Whiny, sure, unable to see anything past her own life, yeah, but he and his band had always just assumed by the way the princess clung to Raven Queen that the two of them were having some sort of forbidden affair thing and what all the fuss was about was that the two were at odds about whether or not they should continue in the future past high school.

Granted this made more sense, weird sense, like finding out that your grandma liked to wear tight leather and go clubbing on the weekends and that was why she had been so knowledgeable in helping you buy and learn the rope of wearing your first pair of leather trousers (that fact still haunted him to this day, even when it made his cousin Cerise literally howl in laughter) kind of sense.

And Raven was secretly marrying… Faybelle? For some reason that was probably even more disturbing. But then again he never really did understand the diverse politics of fairies.

"Ow." The boy complained pinching the bridge of his nose; it hurt for him to even think about it.

The boy zipped back behind the tree when he spied none other than Faybelle Thorn out of the corner of his vision flying towards the hall doors.

Faybelle shot Sparrow's tree a scathing look that sent shivers of fear running down his spine before entering the building.

"Raven's problem, not mine, Faybelle will rip off my nearest and dearest if I made a fuss, it's not my problem, it's not my problem…" The boy chanted under his breath as he walked away, having no troubles realizing that if he got pulled into that drama there would be no escape (and Faybelle would make his life hell) and it would most likely cause issues to his private life, which he _did not_ want.

Besides the boy could understand Raven's feelings about an unrequited love interest in someone from the wrong side of the Rebel vs. Royal conflict… and someone that did not have the same orientation as you.

Well at least he felt a little better knowing that Dexter didn't actually have a crush on Raven… but damn the false hope that gave him seemed even worse, it wasn't like a cute, adorably clumsy little nerd prince like Dexter would ever be interested in a male Rebel with an attitude.

Maybe he wasn't giving Raven enough credit, maybe she was more substance than hot air. She at least had the potential to become a decent musician if she wanted to; she at least had enough angst inside of her to be a perfect muse for a new song...

Maybe if Sparrow left out the secret marriage part Faybelle wouldn't notice… and he'd have to obscure a few things to keep Apple from sending her loyal horde after him but… yeah Sparrow could do this.

XXX

"It's about time you guys got here." Kitty griped to Apple and Daring as they came in.

"What's she doing here?" Apple asked scowling at Faybelle who was currently companionably resting her hands on Raven's shoulders as if they belonged there. To Apple's growing alarm Raven did not seem to be bothered at all, in fact the witch actually seemed to lean into the fairy's touch.

"I hadn't been nearly as mischievous lately as I should have been, I knew that Tiffany left her gift of bridal attire in her box so I wanted to swipe those things so that I could bug Edward with them." The fairy stated nonchalantly, leaning over so that her cheek rested against Raven's. "To my surprise I found a determined little Raven and the rest of her clan here, bravely setting out to find the lost magic book, so I said to myself; since it will benefit me if the Book is found then I'll graciously help in this secret investigation."

"Thank you for helping us Faybelle." Raven said with a quiet smile before Apple had a chance to snap at the fairy. "And thank you for keeping this a secret."

"My, my, well deserved praise already?" Faybelle asked in a pleased teasing tone, taking one of her fingers under the witch's chin in order to turn the other girl's head away from Apple's direction and towards Faybelle. "What a kind, polite little thing you are." The fairy purred her sharp teeth showing as she leered seductively at the witch.

Raven blushed, feeling a little flattered and light headed at being called kind and polite in such a manner.

Daring quietly stepped away from a furiously fuming Apple, his sense of self-preservation kicking in.

"Are we interrupting something?" A new voice asked before Apple could bark out her opposition about how Faybelle was treating Raven.

"No!" Apple snapped marching over to a wide-eyed Raven and grabbing her out of Faybelle's clutches, enveloping the witch in a possessive hug as she glared at the fairy.

"Yes." Grumbled Faybelle; casting the princess an annoyed look.

"Can't breathe! Spine… breaking!" Raven gasped, inhaling deeply when Apple loosened her hold, and patted the witch's head in apology.

"Blondie, Cupid! What are you two doing here?" Daring asks because no one else seemed to be focusing on the newcomers nearly as much as the glaring contest between Apple and Faybelle and Raven struggling to break free of Apple's hold.

"We noticed you two sneaking away early, which was odd because the last two years you guys have stuck around afterwards for a second round of applause as you two walk back to the grand lunch in the castleteria to greet your adoring fans and future subjects for when you two get married." Blondie said cheerily. "As a reporter with a sense for a story I grabbed Cupid and followed. We heard Faybelle explain through the door that you guys are looking for the Book of Legends, Cupid and I decided to help."

" _We promise to be sneaky_ my ass." Kitty hissed under her breath.

Cupid eyed the way Raven visibly tensed up at the mention of Apple being with Daring in worry. "We never assumed that you two were going off to do anything… romantic of course." The winged girl clarified hoping to quell the jealousy Raven sometimes felt towards Daring and his duty to essentially become Apple's baby daddy, as well as some irritation towards his wandering eye. "The two of you being quite clear that you have all the time in the world after high school to be monogamous."

"Which was what tipped me off in the first place." Blondie added obliviously, much to Cupid's resignation. "As the future Snow White Apple would never risk being accused of not being a perfect fair maiden, even though there isn't any real risk of that happening." The blonde gave her princess friend a pointed look. "No harm would come to Apple's reputation even if she did decide to date someone else and not Daring, because like you keep saying Apple; we are all just in high school, while we may have our destinies after graduation, we are free to date and do what we want while in high school."

Cupid sighed in relief when Raven seemed to relax at the reporter using the princess's own words to formulate an argument that one could avoid having to become one's destiny in high school, being forced into a roll even before a story was another sore spot for the witch.

"While that may be true, there is also a need to keep up appearances, and what better way to practice for our life roles than working to become them while in high school?" Apple argued back on instinct before her eyes widened as she realized that Raven was in the room and Apple had just practically put her foot into her mouth and made herself seem even more ignorant and untrustworthy to the witch than before.

"However there are exceptions-!" She tried to say but Raven, having had enough broke free of Apple's hold and turned her back to the princess.

"We shouldn't be dallying like this for too much longer." The witch announced, keeping her face from being seen by most of the room, not wanting to appear weak by showing the raw hurt written on it.

"Let's go." Faybelle appeared in front of the witch with a hand extended, her kind tone was like a warm salve to Raven's stinging heart.

The witch smiled gratefully and took the other's hand before the two turned to the giant open book in front of them and stepped forward, disappearing into the pages.

XXX

"Uh… How do we tell which story is which?" Faybelle asked staring up at the eight giant closed sides of books standing up inside the messy giant cocoon of loose pages that they were currently standing in.

"I guess we just choose one and hope for the best." Cupid shrugged.

"It's worth a shot, be careful everyone!" Raven called over her shoulder, letting go of Faybelle's hand with a departing squeeze. All around her the others nodded and disappeared into their chosen books leaving the witch, the fairy, and the princess.

Apple made to head the witch off before she could disappear into the book in front of her. "Raven wait, before we go I have something that I need to-"

"I'm sure you can tell me later Apple!" Raven said quickly, changing directions and fleeing into the book beside the one she was about to step into.

"Looks like you've made her upset." Faybelle observed nonchalantly. "Oh dear, and it seems like it may take more than an apology this time… that is if you feel that you ever need to apologize, seeing as how you are so fair and perfect by default. After all what's a lone brokenhearted witch in comparison to molding a villainous pet from the hammer of constant pestering?"

Apple gave faybelle an odd look, feeling offended but not following the other's logic. "What?"

Faybelle turned to Apple with glowing eyes, her voice changed to something more demonic and taunting as she spoke. "You have always strived to groom her to become one haven't you? A little witchy pet that fits the perfect false ideal in your head of a fairytale villain, who does not question you, _ever_ , and who will obediently live with her dishonor so that you can derive a fetish pleasure out of her becoming a proper wretched little thing who has to live as the feared outcast, forsaken by the world and only having you there to comfort her, even after others curse her name and hate her for doing as you wanted her to do, poison you, commit acts of villainy that you approve of her doing to you. My how thrilled you must get at the thought of her all broken and alone save for the times when you feel like giving her attention… making her addicted to your gaze so that she will be willing to do bad things just so that you may turn your head her way. How you-"

"Stop! That's not true! None of that is true!" Apple roared surprising the fairy by roughly grapping the front of Faybelle's shirt and screaming at the top of her lungs at the fairy.

The glow in Faybelle's eyes disappeared. "Could have fooled me, Raven too because that's exactly how Raven is starting to see it." Her voice came out normal, albeit more than a bit dry.

"You know nothing!" Apple hissed with conviction.

"In fact I am telling the truth." The fairy shrugged as best she could with the princess's tight hold on her shirt. "She truly believes that you care more about your story and that you are only kind to her because you want something from her, for her to become your ideal as a villain- which I must point out is completely false and on another note, totally insulting to us real villains- and as a result her faith in you as the kind and just friend you claim to be is dwindling. Tragic really; especially considering that she loves you so and she's devoted so loyally to you in every other capacity aside from becoming your villain, what a terrible future ruler you are treating your ally like that. Don't deny it princess, I know that you are smart enough to see just how much she loves you."

Faybelle yelped when she was pushed to the ground.

"You're lying!" Apple screamed her hands clenching into fists.

"About what? How Raven gets her feeling's hurt whenever you remind her of her un-happily ever after? Or that she dared love you in an unseemly way, a way that opposes what you want her to feel for you? Or is it both? Is the great and fair Apple White disgusted by the true hearted affections of a meager _witch_ and not the handsome prince who has an eye that wanders the other way every time there is a pretty face and body there to swoon over his looks and ego?" Faybelle asked as she stood up, brushing off imaginary dust as she did so.

"Why are you doing this?" Apple demanded tears springing to her eyes.

"My mother told me that while she had been working as a general villainy teacher at Ever After High, the Evil Queen didn't start out to be as evil or as insane as she had become during her career. She said that the teenaged girl the Evil Queen used to be shared a lot of characteristics with Raven. The Evil Queen was made to be who she is from the cruel hand of maidens like you and the Headmaster himself." The fairy looked at Apple in disgust.

"What do you mean?" Apple asked with gritted teeth.

Faybelle rolled her eyes. "It was a classic case of the privileged few bullying an easy target just because she wasn't _human_ , princess. They hounded her relentlessly, threatening her, blaming villainous acts that they had committed onto her, scared away anyone save her roommate who tried to get close to her, constantly badgered her with horrible words and cruel notes left behind for her everywhere she went. According to my mother she had tried seeking help from the Headmaster, begged him to make it all stop and you know what he did? He called her a disgrace to her ancestry and assigned her to all the classes her tormentors were in and forbade his staff from trying to help her because according to him _she needed to stand up for herself_."

Apple stepped back her eyes wide, hands covering her mouth.

"As it has become quite obvious she snapped." Faybelle shrugged, speaking in a much calmer tone. "If those maidens hadn't been such _asses_ my mother would have had a lovely ally from the Queen clan instead of an embarrassing enemy. Suffice to say my mother quit out of disgust and has taught me more than one way to defend myself should some hypocritical human maidens decide to start up that old racist nonsense again. And seeing as how Raven Queen is not a threat to my story, I have generously decided to try to form her into my ally."

"Why are you defending Raven?" Apple growled. "Just last week you were calling her a wannabe villain."

The fairy looked off to the side. "I had once thought that Raven Queen was as rotten as her mother underneath all that preaching and independence… I will admit- _begrudgingly_ -that I was wrong, I have found that all that there is underneath her Rebel ideals is a truly maiden-like witch who just wants her honor back and to have hope for a better future." Faybelle admitted in a bored sigh. "She is hardly the villainous type… and once you take away the taint of her mother's shadow there is… potential for her to become useful to me."

"And why should I believe you, about any of this?" Apple demanded her words sharp.

Faybelle shrugged. "My business with Raven is actually _none_ of your business and that is how it is going to stay. However you yourself can verify for yourself the past cruelty done to the present Evil Queen… you are staying in the same dorm that your mother had occupied correct?"

Apple stiffened. "Yes…?"

Faybelle snorted in amusement, stepping closer to the book that Raven had tried to get into earlier. "Over the years it has become custom for students of royalty to secretly install hidden little areas in the dorm rooms, my mother has alluded that there might be something left over from when she was there… if she does not wish to tell you what she and her maiden friends did herself then you might want to find that little hideaway place."

Before Apple could get any words out the fairy stepped into the book's pages, out of her sight.

"No." Apple gritted her teeth and shook her head. Stomping to the only book left. "She's lying, she's a evil fae, she's lying, _she's lying_ …!" The princess chanted as she stepped into the pages of the last book.


	12. Chapter 12

A/n: For this story all the future story characters have to be pre-signed into the Book of legends when they are born or when they are children so that the Book can recognize them as the future generation for when they do sign end up signing it in a few years (because if it was all automatic then the Book would have known Poppy was born first and was supposed to become the next Rapunzel).

So I once did a project for elementary school about fairytale origins… I don't recommend it, not if you are under a certain age and dislike horrific things in general. 'Cause that's how I was about the whole thing; horrified. The original, numerous versions of fairytale stories are ** _not_** for children! At any rate I mixed some elements from the original story versions with my personal ideas and got the following…

XXX

"Where?" Raven whispered looking around a peaceful field of daisies and clovers, wracking her brain for where she might be.

For some reason it all looked… familiar for some reason.

"No poisoned apples, no spinning wheels, no unconscious maidens, not Wonderland…" She looked herself over. "No arrows… bears?" The witch looked around her in worry. "No wait, isn't there supposed to be a house for that?" The witch continued to mumble as she started to walk along.

"I wonder how the others are doing…"

XXX

"Ooh, why is this matchmaking thing so difficult?" Maddie growled as the female bunny mule kicked a surprised male.

"How does Cupid do this?" The girl asked staring at her bow and scratching her head.

XXX

"Foolish bears!" Kitty grinned viciously, taunting the remaining two beasts from the back of an unconscious papa bear. "Did you really think that you could defeat a Cheshire on brute strength alone?"

The cat-girl clicked her tongue in reprimand when the remaining enemy roared and charged.

"Honestly, looks like I'll have to teach you this lesson yet again." Kitty sniffed grinning wide as she disappeared. "Who knew Blondie's story could be so much fun!"

XXX

"Hello lady kitty, do you know the sound that a crow makes when he's typing on a typewriter?" Asked a little girl, her eyes big and questioning.

"Uh…" Cupid said from her perch on a purple-striped tree branch, her ears and tail twitched uncertainly. "I don't remember Alice saying that in the story…"

XXX

"There she be my queen!" Blondie heard in the distance.

"Off with her head!" The Queen of Hearts ordered. "Seize her!"

"Uh oh." Blondie yelped, picking up her pace as she ran as fast as she could in the opposite direction of the queen's army.

XXX

Daring was starting to understand why Raven didn't want to become the Evil Queen… also he was wondering why the unconscious girl in the glass coffin looked just like Apple, blonde hair and all.

The terrible words and shouts that the mirror was showing him… all directed at the Evil Queen… directed at Raven…

It… hurt. The words hurt. They weren't directed at him exactly but… it _hurt_!

"Congratulations my queen, your revenge against the wrongs done to you will be complete soon." The mirror told him.

"Revenge? What did the White family ever do to the Evil Queen?" Daring asked the mirror.

Images flew across the mirrored surface, like a horrific movie. "Her father took the love of her life away from her, the fair Alyssa, who was forced to become the king's wife, after the birth of her unwanted child, who she named Snow, the king wanted to try for a son, queen Alyssa took her own life to spare herself from having to be touched by the king ever again." The mirror spoke; it's monotone voice holding a slight… questionable lilt to it as Daring made helpless noises of outrage at the fragments from queen Alyssa's life.

"After word reached her of her beloved's death the Evil Queen sought to invade the castle and assassinate the king, but he spied her in the streets of his kingdom and instantly desired her beauty, thinking that she was just a mere human he took her to be his wife that very day, on the first night of their marriage the Evil Queen was successful in finally killing her enemy and seizing control of the kingdom. Assuming the name of Evil Queen to scare off neighboring kingdoms."

"How horrible…" Daring whispered horrified, his hands shook as they covered his mouth. He would have never guessed… "Then… why did the Evil Queen poison Snow white? What did she ever do to the Evil Queen?"

"It was for the girl's protection as well as the protection for her unborn child." The mirror sounded a little defensive now, showing more fragments. "The girl fell in love with a most disgusting man, the self proclaimed Prince Charming who fed the girl a distasteful racism towards witches the race the only mother she had ever known belonged to, and empty promises of marriage and happily ever after's before impregnating her and running off."

" _He what?_ " Daring yelped completely aghast. "But… but he was a _Prince Charming_! He's supposed to be a chivalrous ally to maidens! And how was ordering a huntsman to take away a girl's heart in any way _protecting_ Snow White?"

"The huntsman was a drunken fool." The mirror said reproachfully. "The Evil Queen asked that he find the girl after she had run away in an attempt to find the Prince Charming and bring the girl back so that the Evil Queen could give the girl a potion that would ease her heartbreak. The idiot man brought back a badger heart, completely unaware that the queen had been watching him and his blatant incompetence the entire time."

"Well… maybe she should have been allowed to find him, or better yet have Prince Charming brought back so that he could take responsibility." Daring suggested reproachfully.

"That had been the queen's initial plan, however the gargoyles in the family crypt reported certain… evidence proving that Prince Charming would be an unfit husband and father…" The mirror sounded a little nauseated.

"How so?" Daring demanded, getting a little angry at the mirror.

"Just remember that you asked for it…" The mirror warned before showing Daring a moving fragment of a man, who looked just like him, in a crypt, shirtless, sitting in a coffin… and kissing the bearded skeletal face of a corpse with a golden crown on it's head.

Daring heard a high-pitched scream close to his ear.

It took him a few moments to realize that the one who was screaming… was himself.

XXX

This was not in the versions of Briar's story that she or her friend had ever heard of. Apple thought to herself as she stared, absolutely mortified, at the sight of… her friend Briar… stripping herself of her clothes… in front of Apple.

"It was you wasn't it?" Sleeping Beauty asked, her innocent tone and wide-eyed expression clashing with her erotic movements as she shimmied out of her dress, exposing a very revealing semi-transparent slip. "The one who has always been there, at the edges of my life growing up?" She stepped closer as Apple stumbled back.

"Always out of sight…" The woman dragged her hands up her body, taking the straps and pulling them slowly off her shoulders, unbuttoning a few buttons on a short, lacy, early excuse for a bra as her hands dragged the slip down.

"Always just out of my reach…" Sleeping Beauty crooned dropping the slip to the floor.

Apple squeaked as she bumped into the stone wall, horrified that she was now cornered.

"Always watching me…" The woman moaned fingers loosely grasping the ties that held her underwear up.

" _Dang it_." Apple hissed, once she noticed that the page she needed to get in order to get out of this story was strapped in place by a leather garter to the inside of the woman's bare thigh.

"I was raised all my life by fairies." The woman bit her lip, her eyes smoldering as they appraised Apple. "You want me correct? As compensation for the dishonor my parents paid against you? I promise that you can have all of me, however you want me, if you let my human kingdom go free from your spell."

The woman's fingers tightened on the strings holding her underwear up.

Apple closed her eyes before she saw something that would haunt her for the rest of her life.

"Prick your finger on the spinning wheel needle!" Apple commanded desperately.

A light chuckle filled her ears. "Whatever you wish~." The woman whispered against Apple's ear, the breath ghosting across her face making the princess shudder in revulsion.

A few moments later Apple delighted in the sound of a muffled thump followed by loud snoring.

"I'm never going to be able to look Briar in the eye ever again." The princess whined looking between the slumbering figure on the floor and the discarded pair of panties at her feet.

XXX

The wind blew violently around them, Faybelle could hear the crack of rocks falling off of the disintegrating ledge under her feet, she noted absently that the apple tree behind the human stereotype of a crone, situated further up the hill on stable ground, was actually rather lovely in appearance, whether by nature's design or by some spell it was especially elegant looking.

"Look at me child!" The Evil Queen mascaraing as a crone cooed. Faybelle spying a rolled up page nestled in her basket of apples "Have an apple my dear, go on, take one big bite, it's your destiny~."

"Bitch please." Faybelle snorted, flapping her wings to hover just a little bit above the other, forcing the witch to look up. "I'm the future Evil Fairy, and soon I will have the title of Evil Queen as well." The teen said with a wave of her hand, her magic snatching the basket out of the Evil Queen's clutches.

The crone's form wavered, dissolving into the image of a beautiful young witch looking tiny in the expanse of the black cloak, with eerily similar but not exact features to Raven and poisonous crimson streaks running through her night black hair.

"Wow, the original Evil Queen kind of looks like Raven's grandmother." Faybelle observed to herself as she brought the basket closer to her.

"The image of the Evil Queen changes with each new generation that signs me." The Evil Queen spoke.

Faybelle stilled, pausing the basket in mid-air.

"Could you elaborate please?" Faybelle's voice came out a bit strangled. "You look like the mother of the current Evil Queen, not the… current Evil Queen…"

The woman tilted her head to the side. "But I do look like the current Evil Queen, the one named Elenore Queen was the last to sign me and take on the title. And no new generation has yet been registered to be apart of the newest set of pages for this generation."

"No one signed after her?" Faybelle asked eyes wide.

The figure blinked as if confused. "There was an error. It has been known to happen. The last to sign on that page wrote; _anonymous_ and thus the title stayed with the previous signer… why do you ask such obvious questions little fairy?"

Without another word a stunned Faybelle grabbed the page out of the apple basket and disappeared.

XXX

"Oh no…" Raven's eyes widened as raced over to the unconscious figure trapped within a glass coffin.

"Oh, no, no, no…" Raven whispered, pushing at the top lid of the coffin until it slid off with a crash. Not noticing how the wooden platform under her feet groaned in protest to her added weight.

As she stared down at the still face of a girl who looked just Apple tears grew in the witch's eyes. "I'm in Daring's story…"

The witch gently reached down to tenderly brush some hair from the princess's face.

"I'm so sorry…" Raven's voiced cracked as tears dripped down her face.

Below her the platform holding the coffin up gave way, sending Raven tumbling to the ground with the unconscious form of the princess with her.

There was a moment of stillness afterwards where Raven whined in pain from the fall to the hard ground and the figure on top of her accidentally pulling her hair and jabbing her side with a knee as they quickly moved off to the side.

Raven's eyes snapped open at the alarming sound of someone hacking something out of their mouth close by.

The witch sat up just in time to see the blonde girl who looked just like Apple trying to cough up something trapped in her mouth.

On instinct Raven moved to hold the girl's hair back, the witch trying not to gag herself when the blonde reached into her mouth and grabbed what was obstructing her breathing, pulling the long piece of rolled up paper out and throwing it to the side.

"Holy Ancestors are you okay?" Raven asked the girl, staring wide-eyed at what had been stuck in the other's throat.

"Tis be…" The girl tried to speak, coughing as she turned to embrace the witch. "You… Tis be…" The princess continued to cough.

"Try inhaling slowly, don't talk yet, just focus on breathing." The witch cooed, rubbing the other's back.

"You saved me…" The princess whispered. "You're not a prince but you're so kind."

"Well I try to be…" Raven coughed awkwardly. "And as for the prince thing… it really all depends on which culture and kingdom you come from-"

The witch was cut off when a pair of lips covered hers.

"As long as there is one kingdom that'll acknowledge you as my prince nothing else matters." The princess stated with conviction. "You have a good feel about you, better than many Prince Charming's that my descendants have been arranged with, I've become real good at reading the feel of the names over the centuries, so very few of my descendant's marriages turned into love… but you, you have all the good things that can make up a good prince."

The girl grinned at the sputtering witch, her expression reminding Raven of sunshine. "And the Book loves you, I can tell, since I've been apart of it for so very long, we find your blood and your spirit compatible with us, a good sign that, a good sign indeed! Although very familiar… I think that I've met you before…"

"…Snow White? _T-the_ Snow White?" Raven squeaked looking at the girl with wide eyes.

Snow White smiled widely. "Pleasure to make your acquaintance Miss…?"

"R-Raven." The witch mumbled. "I'm… Raven daughter of… The Good King. He's my father, I'm his only child."

"Which Good King family?" The princess asked curious.

Raven blinked in confusion. "The one who owns the Pendragon estates-"

"And such good breeding too!" The princess squealed. "Perfect for my prince!"

"We've only just met." Raven reminded nervously. "And I'm a girl… and a witch."

"My step-mother had a few lady consorts that she would bring back to her bedchambers, and she was a witch too, a very kind one… a fact that I had never appreciated until it was too late…" The girl's blue eyes darkened in sadness and regret.

"The Evil Queen was _nice_?" Raven exclaimed incredulously.

"Very much so." Snow White sighed sadly. "And she was a wonderful mother and ruler, the kingdom thrived under her care."

"But the story-" The witch choked.

"My former husband's friend's creation I'm afraid, very clever bending the facts… making my past regrets look so pretty on paper." The princess murmured into Raven's shoulder.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Raven asked softly. "You don't have to if it's too painful."

The blonde leaned back to look her in the eye. "It's been so long… it would be nice to confess the truth once more, the confession I gave seven years ago to that woman made me feel so much better, it wouldn't hurt to speak of it again. That is if you are willing to listen."

 _Woman…? Seven years ago…?_ Raven's mind stuck to those facts but decided not to ask just yet.

"I am willing to listen." Raven admitted rubbing the princess's arm reassuringly.

The princess sunk down and laid her head in the witch's lap, sighing contently when Raven obediently ran her fingers through blonde hair.

"I threw it all away for the promise of love to some human prince who was only looking for a good time. He was the son of one of the neighboring human kingdoms, brought in for the exact purpose of luring me astray; he had never actually been interested in me, as it had turned out… He was sweet and charming and having met no boy of the right breeding and my age before… and I being so young, merely fourteen years of age, and completely enchanted by the idea of true love at first sight… fell for his trap, and into his bed." Snow White mumbled regretfully. "He had told me that witches were evil, that they tricked humans for their own gain, I was so foolish to actually believe those lies to be true when the morning after I submitted myself to him he was not in the bed and he was nowhere in the castle… I had thought that it had been my stepmother's doing."

"You weren't married first like in the story?" Raven asked surprised.

"And my daughter had been conceived that night as well." Snow White sighed. "When the queen found out I was pregnant she was furious at the prince for taking advantage of such a young girl, the poison of his lies had taken hold in my brain, I had feared the demise of the man I thought I loved, so I ran off to search for him… the story continues in a similar manner to the fairytale except my step-mother never sought out to harm me, just bring me home."

"If the prince was never interested in you then… why did he kiss you goodbye after you ate the poisoned apple?" Raven asked.

Snow White sighed. "He never kissed me, he had seen what he thought was my corpse in the glass casket and ordered his men to seize it and bring it back to his castle for his personal enjoyment, the bit of apple stuck in my throat dislodged when his soldiers dropped the casket… to my confusion at the time I discovered that he found me prettier presumed dead than alive."

"He- prettier when you were-?" Raven gaped.

The princess nodded. "Yes he was a necrophiliac, had a grand old time with my father's corpse in the family crypt apparently."

" _Eww_." The witch made a face.

"Indeed." The princess agreed full heartedly before curling up further into herself, hugging Raven around her waist desperately. "I never had the chance to apologize to her, my step-mother perished trying to get me back from the hands of the neighboring kingdom herself…" The girl trailed off seemingly not willing to elaborate on how the original Evil Queen met her demise.

"Then the Book of Legends was created to keep fairytale magic around to help the kingdoms flourish and to ensure that there would be no combining of established kingdoms or republic governments popping up… and a part of me… the memory of me, stays here, perfect penance I should think, I'll _never_ forgive myself for my foolish behavior." The princess sniffled watery.

"You're awfully hard on yourself." Raven observed, making the blonde look up at her in surprise. "You may have messed up your life over a boy back in the beginning but… to be honest _you were_ the one who was tricked and I think that marrying a necrophiliac is enough punishment for anybody… I… think that enough time has passed that maybe you can start attempting to find peace with this… it… hurts me to see you so sad over a bad situation that you ended up having no control over…"

"Do you truly think that enough time has gone by that I can be… forgiven?" The princess asked hopeful. "That the descendants of the Queen clan could find it in their hearts to forgive me? I had wanted to ask that woman from the Queen clan, the daughter of Elenore who is the current Evil Queen, this when the woman brought her child here in order to hide the pitiful little thing from the bad man who the Grimm descendants tried to initiate as the new servant to us." Snow White spat looking vexed.

"My mother was in _here_?" Raven blurted her mind reeling from so much information being presented to her at once.

Snow White blinked at Raven in surprise and sudden recognition. "Now I know who you are." The girl snapped her fingers in realization. "Silly of me truly, how could I forget the taste of your sweet blood as I helped bandage you up? Do you remember me? I looked a little different back then, I had darker hair, your and your mother's visit was just a few hours before my latest descendant had been registered into the Book for her birth name to be given some time to be acknowledged as the next in line and read for what her potential future may look like."

"Wha-…?" Raven shook her head, snatches and small pieces of memory swam forth of the dream she had of her mother talking to a dark haired girl while Raven lay amongst grass and flowers between the waking world and drug-induced sleep.

Or at least Raven had thought that it had been a dream.

"Hold up, I- so much new information has just come out of your mouth without anything for me to use in order to arrange it into proper context… could you please start at the beginning?" Raven asked desperately.


	13. Chapter 13

"Whew, glad that's over, being Cupid is a lot harder than it looks!" Maddie declared as she appeared out of her book.

"What's going on with you guys?" The Hatter-girl asked staring at the three others in the room in confusion.

"So… much… running!" Blondie whined breathless, laying flat on the floor. "I can't… feel my… feet…"

"I have learned something rather interesting…" Faybelle murmured, one hand under her chin as her gaze stared unseeingly at the pages all around them, lost in her thought. "And it requires much contemplation."

" _Don't ask_." Apple growled darkly, her back was to everybody else as she sat down hunched over on the floor.

"Oookay-dokey…" Maddie pursed her lips as she eyed the gloomy princess with a mild level of caution.

XXX

"You aren't planning on ever signing the Book and becoming the next Evil Queen? You're going to token marry the Evil Fairy's daughter so you can be free of that obligation?" Snow White asked eyes wide. "Well that's a relief, especially since you are far more suited to being a prince than a mockery imitation of my step-mother."

Raven blushed, wondering why the princess kept insisting on calling her a prince.

"So, just for clarification; my mother never whipped me, she just brought me here because she believed that this place would be the safest to hide until it was safe to escape the school grounds… someone _else_ drugged me, kidnapped me, brought me here, and tried to… sacrificially kill me all because the Book wouldn't accept him as the new servant to it?" Raven asked feeling upset and more than a little bit terrified. "Why? I was just a kid! What did I ever do to deserve that?"

"Your mother kept asking the same thing, she was rather upset about it, continuing to mumble about how she had not gone through with her evil plans yet and how you were just an innocent little girl so she was quite confused to that man's hatred towards you." Snow White nodded contemplatively.

"That must have been just before she went crazy and poisoned the worlds." Raven sighed leaning back. "And you're saying that she _never_ signed her birth name in the Book?"

The blonde shook her head. "Nope, not once for the title of Evil Queen. And you were never registered to be in the Book when you were a child."

"And technically my grandmother is still the Evil Queen…" Raven dragged a hand over her face. "And _nobody_ noticed, _nobody_ thought to look through the Book and check…"

"It wouldn't be the first time an individual did not write their birth name on their page." Snow White informed. "Many over the centuries have done this and in some cases they appeared to have broken free of their family ties to the fairytale tradition because no new generation came around to fill their roll or someone from a different family had to step in to take over."

"Why didn't I think of that?" Raven laughed covering her eyes; it certainly would have been easier to make everyone think that she signed the Book before running away to a place where no one could find her.

Raven felt overwhelmed and was internally freaking out over her mixed feelings between being relieved that her mother never harmed her and terrified that there was someone out there still who hated her so much, for no real reason at all, that they had tried to kill her when she was small and unable to defend herself.

And she couldn't help but feel guilty that she had just assumed that it had been her mother who had harmed her all this time, Raven remembered very little of the last time she stayed with her mother, the last clear memory she had was eating the candy someone left on her desk and the rest was all fuzzy until one day she woke up in her own bed in the King family's main palace, the healers that had looked her over said that she had been drugged with some sort of special island lotus flower that puts it's victims in a daze for days, sometimes weeks.

Raven kind of felt that she should have been more suspect that her mother had whipped her back in order to get the blood she needed for the spell; if the Evil Queen needed her blood for the curses on the worlds then the woman could have used easier and less painful means to harvest it from Raven.

She was going to have to do a lot of thinking and talk with several key people about what she had just learned, but right now there was one more thing she had to do before she left the book.

The witch put her hand down and looked at Snow White with tender fondness. "Thank you for helping me clear this up and… I forgive you, Snow White, the last daughter of the Queen clan forgives you and just wants to see you smile one more time before she has to leave and forge a new destiny."

"Your Rebellion cause that you had been talking about a little earlier correct?" Snow White asked sounding enchanted by the idea of being able to choose one's own destiny. "It all sounds so exciting! A noble quest for my prince!"

"You still want me to be your prince?" Raven asked with a confused smile, her heart stinging slightly because Apple, Snow White's descendant, would probably rather drink trolls tears than think of Raven as any maiden's prince. "Even after I just told you that I'm sneaking out of the Evil Queen title through marriage?"

"Token marriages aren't real binding marriages." Snow White sniffed, wrapping her arms around Raven's shoulders. "And by coming here, waking me up, listening to me, telling me such wondrous hopeful things about new beginnings and forgings one's own destiny… forgiving me of my wrongs… that Raven King-Queen has given me back some of my happiness, something that a true prince should strive to offer to a maiden with a broken heart… thank you so much."

Raven hugged the other girl. "I should be thanking you too, you brought back some faith I had lost to my sense of family pride, now I know that my founding ancestor was actually a good person… and that my mother wasn't the one to hurt me… you have given me some peace within myself that I had once thought I would never achieve."

"Can I ask you for one last favor before you have to leave?" Snow White asked sounding tentative and unsure.

"If it's within my abilities, I'll be happy to grant you any favor you want." Raven told her honestly, leaning back from the embrace so that she could look at Snow White, _the_ Snow White, who was so very kind and more than a little enchanting and adorable according to Raven.

"Will you… kiss me? Softly, like someone who cares for me? I had only kissed one prince in my short living life and he… was not at all charming… nor did he care about me." The girl looked to the side with a wince.

"And you want a kiss that brings you some happy memories to wright over the unhappy ones?" Raven guessed. It made sense and Raven could hardly blame the girl for wanting that little bit of closure, a kiss from a kind stranger to look back on instead of her memories of the creep that stole her life.

"It does help that I can sense that you are a kind person with princely qualities so I know for certain that I won't regret this." Snow White pointed out.

"Well you would be my first somewhat romantic kiss so if you can… please direct me how you want it to go? Is that possible with kisses?" The witch wondered to herself, a heavy blush painting her nose.

"Only one way to find out!" Snow White giggled happily at the witch's permission for a kiss.

The princess leaned forward grinning mischievously. "Will you seal this with a kiss my dear prince?"

"Uh, sure…" Raven said nervously as she leaned in, only thinking briefly how strange the princess's last statement sounded before meeting her lips with the other girl's.

XXX

"And that is how I brought down three bears single handedly." Kitty bragged to her audience who, save for Maddie, where staring at her with wide, horrified eyes.

"Such a good hunter you are." Maddie sighed dreamily, wrapping her arms around her girlfriend's middle. "Our future kittens will be well provided for."

"Kittens?" Apple asks, initially wondering if that was some sort of strange Wonderlandian endearment between close friends.

"In Wonderland the age of legal adulthood is sixteen." Cupid informed.

"We would have gotten publically married already but at Ever After High the school rules say that students can't be official about it until after they graduate." Kitty grumbled sourly. "And there is this big hubbabaloo about married men and women sharing a room. But not the same thing applies to same-sex couples which aside from the whole accidental pregnancy thing is both pretty sexist and good luck on our part." The cat-girl sniffed, kissing a giggling Maddie's ear.

Apple and Blondie stared at the two Wonderlandians with even wider eyes for several moments, as their thought processes appeared to screech to a halt.

"I hope Raven is okay… she's been in there for a while…" Apple forcefully turned her mind to more important matters at hand.

"Raven and not _Daring_?" Faybelle asked with a sneer.

"Daring is a future Prince Charming, there is nothing that he is afraid of or he can't beat!" Apple snapped irritated.

XXX

 _"EW! EW! EW! EW! EW! EW! EW! EW! EW! EW! EW! EW! EW! EW!"_ Daring continued to chant at the top of his lungs, hands over his ears as he did a strange sort of jig around the room in an attempt to try to shake off the images of himself fornicating with a corpse.

"I got the page right here! Now grab it and leave! _Leave I say_! You are so _annoying_! _Just leave already_!" The mirror begged using magic to hold a piece of rolled up parchment in the air and trying to get the prince to listen long enough to grab the paper and disappear from it's domain.

"THE HORROR! MY MIND WILL NEVER BE _CLEEEEEAN_!" Daring sobbed.

XXX

"Did you guys hear what sounded like Daring screaming just now?" Raven heard Cupid ask as the witch appeared behind everyone.

The witch looked over nervously at Faybelle realizing that she would have to tell the fairy everything, Raven hoped that the other might be just a little understanding… even though a token marriage did not have the same vows for monogamy as other types of marriages… and it was just one kiss and just a favor done for a girl who had married a _necrophiliac_ …

"W-what's going on?" Raven cleared her throat to get the other's attention.

"Raven!" Apple cheered when she spied the witch, standing up and making towards her roommate to hug her in greeting.

"RAVEN!" Daring cried as he appeared, racing to the witch at a neck-breaking speed, pushing Apple to the side as he grabbed the witch into a bone-crushing hug. " _IT WAS SO HORRIBLE IN THERE_! How did you stand that destiny for _so long_?" The boy sobbed hoarsely his wet face into Raven's chest.

"So the prince couldn't take the deeds of the original Evil Queen…" Faybelle directed her smug look to Apple who was sprawled haphazardly on the ground. The princess glared poisonously back at Faybelle in response.

"The Evil Queen was a nice lady!" Daring barked at the fairy. "She only became the Evil Queen because she _had to_! And she was trying to protect her step-daughter from a sick and wrong person who was just sick and wrong all over, there was not a single redeeming factor about him, and omigods Raven he was kissing dead people! _Dead people_!" The prince went back to sobbing into the witch's dress.

"Yeah, Snow White told me about that." Raven sighed returning the other's embrace and rubbing soothing circles into the boy's back. "Let's get you out of here and then once we're done with Giles I'll go buy you as much ice cream as you want."

"With the rainbow sprinkles?" Daring warbled out hopefully.

"As many rainbow sprinkles as you can stand." Raven promised.

"I have 't go apologize 't Cerise." Daring sniffled wetly. "Can you take my page for me?"

"Sure thing." Raven agreed.

" _Dead people_?" Faybelle mouthed at the witch.

" _I'll explain later_." Raven mouthed back.

From the ground Apple did not know where to look, or which issue to be more concerned about; Daring's sobbing ramblings about kissing dead people, or the way the witch and fairy kept holding each other's gaze.

XXX

"Alright, we have the eight pages old man, what do we do with them?" Faybelle asked holding up her page.

"Faybelle, be more polite!" Apple hissed quietly while Giles spoke to Maddie.

"He says to hold out the pages in a circle." Maddie translated stepping forward and holding out her page, the others in the room soon following.

The group jumped in surprise when the paper in their hands began to glow, dissolving into streams of light that merged into a limestone block at the center of the circle of girls.

"It's a spell tablet?" Raven reached out to grab the stone and stare at it curiously, softly reading the inscription under her breath.

"What is she say-? Yeek!" Blondie yelped when the tablet shot a bolt of light at Giles's throat.

"Finally, after all these years." The man sighed happily. "Thank you, all of you for going on this little quest, I am very appreciative."

"He says that- hey! You're speaking in Ever After standard!" Maddie exclaimed.

"And it's a great relief to finally have the ability to do so." Giles smiled widely.

"Say wasn't there one more with you earlier?" Giles asked looking around.

XXX

"Finally." Briar hummed contently, rolling over on the soft picnic blankets spread out on the grass so that she could prop herself above Cerise's prone form. "I get to have you all to myself."

"Oh? And what does my lady plan on doing now that she has me?" Cerise asked in a playful tone.

"I'm-"

"Cerise!" A hysterical voice cut off Briar's reply, followed by the sound of branches and brush hitting someone as they ran closer.

The two girls broke apart just in time as Daring burst through the thick cluster of bushes and small trees, landing on his knees and dipping his head to the ground as he began speaking. "Cerise! I'm so sorry I said that you couldn't be in the bookball game because you were a maiden. I was following the etiquette of a Prince Charming and that is wrong! So, so horribly wrong! Oh Ancestors it was _horrible_! _He fornicated with a dead man's corpse_! I'll _never ever_ look at my title the same way ever _again_!" The boy wailed, lifting his face up long enough for his audience to see that he was crying.

"Who's having sex with corpses?" Briar demanded, blinking rapidly.

"Daring, calm down, why don't you take a deep breath, and tell us what happened alright?" Cerise tried to sound calm as she grabbed the boy by his shoulders and lifted his face off of the ground, the boy looked like he'd just gone through hell.

"I want my _innocence_ back." Daring sobbed miserably, wiping his eyes with the backs of his hands.

XXX

"He had a pressing engagement and could not come down here a second time." Raven said.

"Ok, this is touching and all, but how does this help us find the Book?" Faybelle asked hand on her hip.

"Faybelle!" Apple reprimanded.

That is a very logical question Miss Thorn, now that the Book is missing Ever After High needs both myself and my brother the Headmaster to work together in order to not only use our inherited abilities to sense out where the Book may be but also to help establish some sense of safety under two people running the school instead of one." Giles informed. "There is little doubt that the Book must still be somewhere in the vicinity of Ever After High or else its magical signature would have been detected ages ago, such a powerful artifact is difficult to hide or mask it's scent."

"So it's like in the school?" Cupid asked.

"It could be…" Giles allowed. "But it could also be anywhere on campus, in the village, or the forest surrounding the school."

"That's over a hundred acres of wilderness!" Apple exclaimed in dismay.

"But, it's better knowing that it's most likely to be here and not somewhere where the wrong hands could pick it up and perhaps try to sign their names to somebody's story." Raven pointed out while placing a kind hand on Apple's shoulder. "Hey waitaminit', did you just say that the Headmaster's your brother?" The witch asked Giles, not seeing the way Apple's eyes widened as the possibility sank in that just about anybody could sign the Book of Legends and take someone else's roll.

"Yes Headmaster Milton Grimm is my brother." Giles confirmed.

"Do you know who cursed you down here in the first place?" Kitty asked casting Apple an odd look as the princess seemed to be frozen in place, looking inches away from crying.

"My Brother did." Giles admitted easily.

"He _what_?" Faybelle yelped actually horrified for once, coming from an environment where family meant everything the thought of imprisoning a harmless eccentric old man was… rather cold hearted, even by villain standards.

"I wanted fairytale characters to have a choice of whether or not they wanted to take on the rolls of their ancestors. I found myself unable to bear the responsibility of forcing young people to become something that made them miserable… or vengeful…" He said looking away.

"But won't we disappear if we don't sign the Book?" Apple asked worriedly.

The old man surprised everybody when he started to laugh heartily. "Ha, is that batty old wives-tale still around? No, no one will disappear if they don't sign the Book, I've known a few people who escaped their signing obligations and they are still very much alive and well years, some of them over a century later."

Apple's eyes hurt from being opened so wide for so long and her lungs burned from her lack of proper breathing.

XXX

"So the original Prince Charming was a sicko who broke into people's graves to… oh geeze that's horrible Daring, no wonder you're so upset." Cerise patted the boy's shoulder sympathetically as she worked twigs and leaves out of his hair.

"And I thought that the original Prince Charming of _my_ story was bad." Briar shook her head in dismay, she sat next to Cerise and worked on putting her first-aid kit back in order after having finished tending to some superficial cuts and scrapes that the boy had acquired while running blindly around the woods.

"What did he do?" Cerise asked.

"Took advantage of Sleeping Beauty while she was under the spell. Then decided that he wanted her to be his wife so he went back home to get rid of his old wife and went back to my ancestor to see if he could wake her up." Briar said simply. "It actually took him a while to figure out how, imagine Sleeping Beauty's surprise when she awoke to find herself eight months pregnant."

"Are all Prince Charming's in fairytales complete and utter _lies_?" Daring demanded in outrage.

"Rapunzel's Prince Charming was a pretty good guy I hear." Briar mused. "He'd have to be, after the witch holding Rapunzel in the tower, who had also been Rapunzel's mother believe it or not, threw him out the window once she found out he got her daughter pregnant and he got his eyes gouged out when he landed on a thorny bush. But Rapunzel managed to find him before he perished and the magic spell she put into her tears helped heal his eyes."

"Ouch." Cerise said lowly.

"What am I to do?" Daring whimpered, everything I've worked to achieve to be was a lie, I can't possibly continue on being the perfect representation of a Prince Charming when the people who were the models for a perfect prince were… such horrible people…"

"Then why don't you make up your own perfect ideal?" Cerise proposed. "I mean with all the girls you've dated you must know something about women, all that you'd have to do is observe, listen, use common sense, and always keep in mind the importance of being kind to all living things of all genders who are kind to you."

Daring thought about that for a while.

"Could that work?" He asked.

"I don't see why not." Briar shrugged. "You are nothing like that original Prince Charming, and as long as it makes you happy and it allows you to be who you want to be I think that it could work out. And a lot of those princely rules need updating anyway, tons of us are tired pretending to swoon over guys we don't like just because of their genetics."

"And maybe you should talk to one of the school mind healers about what you've seen." Cerise proposed. "It would be best to nip the nightmares in the butt now before they become a problem."

Daring sniffed. "Okay… thank you…"

XXX

Apple sighed as she was greeted to the sight of Bigsbee one of her family castle's low-level golems, she knew that calling out of the blue like this was going to make it difficult for her to get into contact with her parents, so it was only to be expected that no one would answer her call directly.

"Password code and voice recognition online." Apple ordered, hearing an acknowledging beep from the fuzzy artificial creature. "11616125 future SW."

"Recognized." Said Bigsbee. "How can I help you princess?"

"Please fly me to either the king or the queen if they are available." Apple sighed, cursing Faybelle for making her curious enough to ask about such outrageous claims…

"The great King Prince Charming is not available. "The fair Queen Snow White is available. Please forgive a momentary waiting period while I find the fair Queen Snow White." Bigsbee informed before the phone's screen was moved to its talons and it began to move through the castle. Apple waited patiently as she watched the normal goings on of her ancestral home, it was mid-afternoon so it would be normal to see the maids rushing about to prepare the private living chambers for when the king and queen retired for the day.

Which was why Apple was so confused to see the service hallways so empty as Bigsbee flew through them.

Just as Apple was starting to wonder if there was some sort of event going on for the staff she saw a glimpse of short blond hair the same color as her own, being kissed passionately by a half-dressed man servant.

Apple saw her father's crown being yanked off his head and thrown to the floor by her father himself (the king's crown was never supposed to touch the floor) before she pressed the end-call button on her screen.

XXX

"Yes?" Faybelle asked as she opened the door to her dorm.

"We need to talk." Raven informed looking around the empty hallway nervously. "Can I come in?"

Faybelle moved to the side and motioned for the witch to go in quickly. "I'm surprised that you aren't comforting your roommate or that she didn't follow you all the way here." The fairy observed.

"She asked me to go grab us both a lunch and a dinner while she made a call home… I needed to speak with you about some important developments that I'd learned while in the Book's memories… and I didn't know how long I would be here so I… grabbed a third helping and left Apple's share just inside the door with a note and left before she could see me." Raven fidgeted under the fairy's bewildered stare.

"What did you get for me?" Faybelle asked, trying to mask her own nervousness with curiosity towards the witch's basket, if Raven had learned that her mother had never signed the Book and the title was not tainted then there was about a ninety-five percent chance that nothing would change and she would still be submitting her title to Faybelle… the remaining five percent however, had the fairy worried.

"You said that you liked spicy and sweet foreign foods last night so I got spicy chicken curry, yellow rice, naan bread, several sweet and spicy sauces, a mango yogurt smoothie, and there was leftover apple raspberry pie that I had made for cooking class that I think you'll appreciate more than Apple would." The witch listed out.

"How did you know that I like mango?" Faybelle asked smiling slightly despite herself.

The witch blushed. "Ever since… we made our deal I've been, noticing stuff… I know that I'm going to be the wife in this arrangement so I want to be a good one."

"A useful one is more like it." Faybelle said with an easy smile. "You make excellent beauty care products, you know how to sew, according to Kitty you know how to hunt and trap, you are observant, decently intelligent and headstrong, listen to logic, you can wield magic, and now you can cook. All very good qualities thus far."

"I'm glad you think so, I really want this token marriage to work out as much as possible." Raven swore making Faybelle relax as her fears of Raven pulling out of their arrangement were quelled.

"Why don't you tell me what has you so nervous." Faybelle proposed motioning for the witch to sit on her bed while Faybelle took a chair by her desk.

The witch told the fairy everything, from Snow White's actual tragic story, to the facts about her mother and the unknown man who had tried to kill Raven as a child.

"There is… one more thing you should know…" Raven trailed off a blush blooming on her cheeks.

"There's more?" Faybelle gaped. "Wasn't the rest of it eventful enough?"

"She kissed me… twice." Raven bit her lip. "The first time I think was because she approved of me as a better princely figure than what she had experienced before… the second time was a favor that she asked of me… because she married a necrophiliac who only wanted her money and kingdom… and she wanted a kiss from someone who at least _seemed_ to care about her and wasn't… into doing stuff with her dad's corpse." The witch shrugged guiltily, unable to look the other in the eye. "I'm sorry if I did upset you because of-"

"Raven, she married a necrophiliac, who from what you have described, used to do the do with the girl's father's dead body. Hell _I_ would have kissed her too if she had asked." Faybelle assured, she suddenly felt much more respect for the original Snow White for having to deal with all of that.

Raven let out a breath. "That's a relief."

"So are you going to tell Apple? And if so can I watch?" Faybelle asked excitedly.

"I think that it would be more appropriate if her future husband, Daring, was the one that told her, from what I can gather he pretty much got the same story as I did." Raven said, shaking her head at the other's enthusiasm.

The witch suddenly paled. "Kissing her ancestor on the other hand… that would be a no. Even if she was in an understanding mood at the time I tell her, the moment we have another one of our fights about destiny she might get mad over that and… I'd like my face to stay where it is to be honest…"

Faybelle snorted. "Come on, you can't seriously be afraid of her."

"The night after Legacy Day, she was gesturing a lot and she was so mad that she didn't even notice her surprisingly sharp fingernails cutting through the curtains and she didn't stop yelling until she accidentally shattered a terracotta planting pot with her fist." Raven told her in a haunted tone. "I know that as the situation is right now she would _never_ intentionally lay a hand on me, but everyone has their limits and me telling her that I kissed her ancestor so that Snow White would have a happy memory to content herself with and attempt to move on the best she could from her creepy prince and not-so-happily ever after… that might just be her tipping point."

"So you said that the original Evil Queen died while trying to rescue her daughter from the freaks in the next kingdom? And that your mother never signed you or herself into the Book?" Faybelle changed the subject; making a mental note to keep a safe distance from the princess the next time she taunted the blonde. "If the original Evil Queen died before signing the Book it would make sense why I was talking to what seemed like a mere recreated illusion that looked like your grandmother and not the actual Evil Queen…"

"You don't think that it was her in the Book?" Raven asked.

"Since the apparition spoke like it belonged to a hive mind and yours had enough personality to have a freaking heart to heart with you… no, I'm certain that it wasn't the Evil Queen." Faybelle shook her head.

"She really is unable to apologize to her mother." Raven realized sadly. "To think that memory of her has spent so long trapped in the Book, living an un-life of falsities and sensing that only a few of her descendants actually found love…"

"You gave her closure." Faybelle told the witch severely. "And you will not end up like her. Myself and your clan will not allow that to happen."

"I will get my freedom, you will get a second title, and Apple will get what she wants the most in the world; her fairytale story." Raven murmured. "Apple's not going to be happy at first but she will be getting everything that she's been working so hard for… so… she should get over it by the time she marries Daring… maybe…"

Faybelle regarded the witch carefully. "Stay with me for the night." She said to the other. "I think that the princess would rather be alone and not have a reminder that there is more hope for the rebellion than she previously realized."

"Your right… and I kind of figured that might be the case with Apple so I told her that I understood that she might want to be alone right now and that I would be staying at someone else's dorm for the night, and thank you for letting me stay here it saves me the trouble of finding a place to sleep." Raven said looking down sadly, she knew that the other was right; the only result of her showing her face anywhere near Apple right now would just be another fight about destiny.

The witch was starting to understand that Maddie and Kitty were right; the princess only wanted to be around Raven because she… was enchanted by an imaginary ideal of having a villain poisoning her and having everything just fall into place for the princess when her prince woke her up… but was always so disappointed that she had gotten Raven, who was not very evil and didn't want to poison anybody. "I'm probably the last person she wants to see right now."

Faybelle huffed irritably when the fairy's phone suddenly began to ring.


	14. Chapter 14

"Where is Raven?" Apple felt like tearing her hair out in frustration as she read the note that the witch had left for her, stating that the witch had some secret business to attend to and that afterwards she was going to find somewhere else to stay for the night because she knew that Apple was upset and would probably rather not having a Rebel anywhere near her for a while.

Which was a complete misconception because right now the only one Apple wanted to see right now was Raven and the witch was the only one who could calm the princess down on issues not involving destiny, and right now Apple needed help with getting herself to calm down long enough to think!

"She didn't even mention where she's going to be staying!" The princess said in disbelief, Raven had never done that before, she always told Apple where she might be in case of an emergency.

Maybe if Apple called the witch she'd come back…

Apple jumped when she heard her phone which she had abandoned on her desk begin to ring, as the princess drew nearer her heart felt like it had stopped when she saw from the caller ID that it was her mother.

What was she going to do? She couldn't very well tell her mother that she had seen her father… her mother's husband and Prince Charming… doing what he had been doing! Could she really face her mother right now?

To Apple's dread it would seem that she would have to, once the first sets of rings stopped her mother tried calling again, and if she did not answer her mother might get worried enough to call student affairs to find Apple.

Summoning up her best calm expression (something Raven called her poker face) Apple answered the call.

"Hi mom." Apple greeted the woman on the screen neutrally.

"Apple… Bigsbee just handed me a phone whose recent call history says that you were the one to summon him." Snow White said shortly sounding tired. "Why are you calling and why did you hang up in the first place?"

"…Something had come up and I wanted complete privacy for what I'm about to ask you about." Apple said cryptically, fighting the urge to visibly swallow and show any kind of doubt. "I wish to discuss you and your maiden friends in high school… and how you guys treated the current Evil Queen."

Alarm bells rang in Apple's head when her mother visibly paled to deathly shades and her entire frame seemed to quiver guiltily.

"Oh no… _no, no, no_ … Apple sweetie… I had hoped that you would never find out. I was…" Snow White covered her face in shame for a moment before clasping her hands together in a begging motion. "I knew what I had been doing was wrong… but I didn't want to shake the boat by alienating myself from my friends by not participating or saying that we should stop… which was also wrong. So, _so_ wrong and not a day goes by that I don't think about what I had contributed in, or that it had ended up in her insanity, and what state it had left her daughter in the aftermath…"

"You bullied her…" Apple looked at her mother, the woman she had always looked up to, had aspired to become when she grew up… and now? Now Apple didn't know what to think. "But you always taught me that bullying was wrong! That it was not the mark of a good maiden! That I should respect and encourage Raven to become the perfect Evil Queen so that I can get my prince and get my happily ever after!"

Snow White looked down to the polished dark wood of her desk. "I didn't want you growing up repeating my mistakes, I know all those maiden lessons as a little girl were difficult for you, but I just wanted you to be stronger than I was and to never have to be in a situation where you had to choose between fitting in for the sake of somebody else giving you praise to be the perfect princess and going against your core beliefs by being cruel to someone who did not have as good a destiny as you just because everyone else says that you should."

"But I thought that my hair was the reason why you were so tough on me to become better! So that I wouldn't lose my birthright!" Apple instinctually put her hands on her head.

"What? Oh no sweetie that isn't the reason at all! You wouldn't be the first Snow White to have different colored hair from our ancestor, sure there's ridiculous whisperings whenever there is a child born without black hair but those are meaningless, fairytale or no fairytale you are the heir to this kingdom and you would still become queen with or without the title of Snow White. It's written into the legal conditions of the throne that if the eldest daughter does not sign the Book of Legends she still gets the throne." The older woman tried to soothe her child.

Apple went silent, blinking in surprise, that legal document's wording pretty much proving to her that her early ancestors never believed that one would disappear if they did not coincide with tradition.

"Mother… did… did you ever get your happily ever after? The exact same way that you were hoping for as a child?" Apple asked sounding small.

"Oh Apple how silly-" Snow White tried to laugh but the grimace she made gave her away.

"The _truth_ mother." Apple demanded darkly, the images from before conjuring up like a bloody stain in her mind. "I want to know now so that my heart won't break later on when my real ending hits me by surprise!"

Her mother's fake smile wavered. "Daring seems like a nice boy." The woman insisted. "Why? …Is he wavering from you? He's not going out with other girls is he?"

"Mother… Daring and I agreed that since we… were going to get married… permanently… it would be for the best if he had his freedom and dated other girls for a while. Like what you and dad did when you were in school." Apple said carefully.

The fake smile crumbled then, Snow White looking a little fierce now. "Was it his idea?" She almost snapped. "Because if he is turning out to be an ill-suited suitor we can find you a new prince-"

"I will be determining that later mother, and for the record him dating other girls was my idea." Apple frowned at the way her mother was so quick to simply throw Daring away without a destiny. "But right now I need to know if you found your happily ever after or not."

Snow White was silent for a while, looking off to the side. "I'm content…"

"But are you happy?" Apple sighed, nearly at the end of her rope. "Answering me shouldn't be so difficult if you really were happy." Apple spoke more to herself than to her mother, icy dread creeping into her chest.

"On my wedding night, your grandmother took me aside and… explained to me that men have needs and interests that… may be ill-suited for their wives or don't involve their wives at all. That in order for me to have a happy marriage and a stable environment for the heir I must accept this and turn the other cheek should my husband ever lose interest in me, that I should not seek the true love described in the fairytales and that if I can find a level of being content in my situation that would be the best thing I could do with myself." Snow White swallowed and looked down.

"She told me that as long as my husband was discreet that I should be grateful and preform my duties to the best of my abilities, and that I must remain fair and only true to my husband as it is required for a true queen of my reputation and to the duty I have in representing everything that our founding ancestor had done in her short lifetime." The woman spoke solemnly.

"Your father is a good man." Snow White told her severely. " _Never_ question that Apple, but he had never found his level of being content in our marriage until I became pregnant with you and I… he had been so sad, he tried his best to combat his depression and be the perfect Prince Charming and I did my best to ignore it… but one day, while I was pregnant with you I realized that it was not fair to us, nor would it be for you, to continue trying to force ourselves to love each other when in reality… we only loved each other as friends and that if we continued to force ourselves… we would only end up hating each other. So I had a very long talk with him and we agreed to live our private lives only as best friends and to raise you with as much love as we could. We found our level of being content and while neither of us had gotten our promised happy ending, we are happy and our friendship is strong, and we have a beautiful daughter whom we love with all our hearts."

Apple stared at her mother in amazement; she had never seen her mother look… so defeated and yet so passionate all at once before.

"Thank you mother for being truthful… If you don't mind I need some quiet time to think about all of this." Apple said feeling dizzy and nauseous from having the last bit of what she thought to be completely true about the world, turn out to be completely wrong.

"I'm sure you do sweetie." Snow White sighed with a nod before Apple cut off their connection.

XXX

"Is it just me or are you and Faybelle actually getting along? Because I saw her standing next to you in here before she saw me coming and left." Daring asked before taking a mouthful of the wonderfully delicious giant chocolate parfait that the witch had surprised him with by making it all herself. He hummed in ecstasy at the perfect creamy taste of the chocolate ice cream and the warm feeling of the chocolate syrup on his tongue.

Raven smiled slightly, happy that she and the fairy were indeed getting along better, earlier Faybelle had in formed her that she was going to go to one of the foreign magic shops to buy the specially designed fabric needed for the dress Raven would wear when she met her new in-laws and for both of their wedding attire.

The witch made a mental note to call Maddie and Kitty after she was done hanging out with Daring to tell them of the change of plans, instead of leaving after classes they would all be leaving first thing in the morning because the Evil Fairy wanted to try to squeeze in two of those marriage ceremonies instead of just one, which was why Faybelle was attempting to get the fabric for their clothes at one of the foreign shops at Bookends village, because they would not have the time to shop when they got to Faybelle's home.

"I've proven myself to not be a threat to her title, so she is trying to see if I'll be a useful ally to her and her family in their vendetta against the Evil Queen." Raven explained as she sliced up some strawberries to place decoratively on a slice of chocolate Oreo cheesecake. "You know, doing things like; figuring out how to cure the poisoned worlds, and to keep making an extra batch of this shampoo I make myself for Faybelle. Along with Apple, Maddie and a few other people who like using it."

"Is that Apple's secret?" Daring swallowed his mouthful of dessert and seemed to perk up interestedly. "I keep asking her how she's been managing to keep her hair so springy yet so smooth throughout the whole day without having to comb it so often. She won't tell me and it's been driving me crazy trying to figure out her secret."

"Well to be fair I'm pretty sure if the shampoo and conditioner I make is not the sole secret behind what she does to put herself together every morning." Raven chuckled. "I really mostly make it because my hair is so thick that I have to make shampoo specially tailored to make it soft and keep it from getting hopelessly frizzy, especially when the spring rains come and all the moisture in the air plumps it up to an unmanageable volume."

"Well then that just proves that the stuff you make would be fantastic for lots of people's hair if it works so well on yours." Daring stated knowledgably, looking at the witch with big hopeful eyes. "Can you loan me some to try out?"

Raven hummed as she thought about it, if Daring liked her hair-care potions as much as Apple, Faybelle, and the resident Wonderlandians (because during one of their monthly countrymen tea brunches Maddie had blabbed about Raven's potions and after testing a sample Lizzie, Kitty, and the White Queen had gotten very interested) did then Raven would be spending up all of her allowance money making more and more.

However as a bride to the Thorn clan, and thus she had an honorable family of in-laws who might be able to benefit if Raven were to sell some of her recipes under a contract that would give Faybelle a cut of the profits…

Raven was serious about making herself seem as valuable to the Thorn clan as possible in thanks for them giving back her honor.

"You know… I've been thinking about selling that recipe of mine for a while now, and if you like it as much as Apple does then I guess it would be nice if I got a Charming's seal of approval to attract potential buyers." Raven hummed out loud. "I'll see if I can get Apple to take a bottle to you during breakfast tomorrow since I have to leave for a weekend trip right away that morning. Be sure to hext me to tell me whether it has worked out for you, just in case I need to tweak the ingredients to fit your particular hair needs." The witch warned because not everyone was exactly the same and some people needed different things to take care of their specialized needs.

"I'd be more than happy to help out!" Daring vowed happily, he was overjoyed to finally find someone who knew how to make beauty care products so that he didn't have to spend forever testing store bought things out on his siblings to see what worked and what didn't, especially since the best stuff always got discontinued every few months for reasons that Daring could not understand other than that the big rich company's liked to move on to new demographics or change labels for the exact same formula.

"That's great." Raven said honestly. "I need to start preparing for the future and finding ways to support myself without being a bother to others."

"But don't you have a kingdom to run?" Daring asked confused.

Raven waived her hand. "Whether or not I am allowed to ascend to the throne all depends on whether or not me being the Evil Queen's daughter would do more harm to my people than good. Being a Rebel has helped, but as it is I'll most likely end up living a quiet unassuming life in the woods somewhere, and let my grandmother or the Good King assume control until a new heir is birthed by my grandmother, since she has always wanted another child and she is still very much loved in many kingdoms."

Daring took another bite of his dessert and hummed in what sounded to Raven like an understanding tone, so when she turned to get a slice of cake for herself she missed the way the boy's eyes narrowed calculatingly at her as the prince's internal alarms rang over the idea of a fellow future monarch, that he actually _cared_ about, having to give up a birthright over an issue that seemed to be more complex than first glance.

XXX

"Yeah, sure, we understand." Maddie nodded at her phone. "No need to apologize Raven. There is more method to the madness of leaving first thing in the morning, and it was kind for the Good King to call Kitty and I out of morning classes as well. We'll see you in the morning!" The girl smiled at Raven's blushing and relieved face before hanging up.

"Sounds like the Thorn clan is keen on getting things over with as soon as possible." Kitty observed. "I wonder what kind of strings they had to pull in order to get the priests to preform two of those rituals in the space of one weekend."

"It is my understanding that the cranky fairy's uncle is a warlock priest, so family favors such as this would benefit him greatly." Maddie sighed leaning her head on Kitty's shoulder.

"Do you think we did the right thing? Advising our sister to begin weaning herself off the fair one, and do you think that this marriage is the only best option for Raven?" The hatter-girl asked sounding a little worried.

"Well…" Kitty mused. "To be honest I would have been happier if she were marrying someone like Ginger Breadhouse, but from what I've known about Faybelle is that as cranky and manipulative as she is, she will take good care of Raven. And you know that we did the right thing by making her see the truth about the fair one, she loves Apple and since the perfect princess keeps putting her own agendas over Raven's happiness we had to do something before Raven's heart truly broke under such passive aggressive abuse."

"I suppose that it's not like the fair one will suddenly see things from Raven's side and realize the harm that she has been doing, and that she's been bullyragging Raven all this time, or finally come to realize that this whole thing about destiny and tradition has been one big, obvious lie." Maddie huffed. "Not even if it was to hit her full force I'd reckon."

XXX

Apple had gone about her nightly routine on autopilot, going through the familiar motions almost desperately as she mentally tried to cling to something familiar, the facts and events that she had just learned swirled around her brain like haunted ghosts, it was frightening to see them and Apple did not feel the need to touch one and ponder over it yet.

Attempting to get to sleep had been difficult, and she had fitful dreams all night long as her mind fought between trying to understand it all and trying to forget that yesterday ever happened.

In The early hours of the morning when she found herself awake and restless Apple attempted to turn her thoughts to non-destiny or family related distractions, like… Raven! Raven was safe, Raven was nice, Raven-

 _Don't deny it princess, I know that you are smart enough to see just how much she loves you_. Faybelle's taunting tone came rushing back.

Apple's eyes shot open, her heart rate skyrocketing.

XXX

There was a tangible rift growing between them, a rift that Raven had always felt but worked to keep it contained so that she could keep her friendship with Apple; but now it was growing and… Raven began wondering whether or not it would be worth it to attempt to fill in the gaps.

As quietly as she could the witch crept into her dorm blinking in surprise when she saw the food she had brought for Apple yesterday sitting untouched by the door.

If possible Raven tried to make her movements quieter, while she was concerned that the princess had skipped out on two meals, she also knew that it meant that the princess was very, _very_ upset about something.

And Raven was pretty sure that a great deal of that something led right back to her.

So it was a very near thing that the witch didn't scream bloody murder when the lights were suddenly turned on and the first thing Raven saw was a haphazard Apple staring at her intently.

"I'm sorry I woke you up." Raven apologized quietly her blood pounding in her veins from the fright. "I just have to leave earlier than originally planned and I need to-"

Raven startled again when Apple lunged forward and hugged her tight.

"What are you wearing?" The princess mumbled into the intricately printed and embroidered fabric wrapped around the witch. "It's yellow with green on it… and there's pink! You never wear pink!"

Color was very important in the ceremonies that Raven was about to go through, the sea-foam green patterns and writing decorating the bright yellow clothe she wore as a dress and the the sea-foam green veil with yellow designs that she wore did not suit her tastes, but apparently wearing the color of sea-foam on your head symbolized disgrace, the symbols and the strange writing on the pieces of cloth told anybody who was in the know that it was a disgrace handed down by a relative and it advertised that Raven would soon be breaking free of her dishonor, the yellow told pretty much everyone that her status was of imperial royalty (seeing as how both her home kingdoms were so huge and influential, even with all the scandal looming in the background), and the pink that could be seen decorating the ends stated that she would be married off to an honorable family soon.

This dress would be burned ritualistically during the first ceremony and Raven found it ugly enough to not mind that outcome at all.

"The place I'm traveling to is far away, this dress is called a sari, it's important that I wear this to make a good first impression." Raven explained cryptically.

"You have a dot on your head." Apple pointed to the red bindhi between Raven's eyebrows. "And there's something peeking out from your hair." The princess tapped the silver tikka ornament, which was shaped like a starburst and had a tiny amber jewel in the center, on the top-middle of Raven's forehead.

"Trust me it's going to get even more intricate when I get there." Raven told her seriously, dreading the fact that she'll have to get her nose pierced for the nath, which was a circular nose ring worn as the most seductive piece of jewelry of her wedding outfit. "I'm probably going to be wearing about ten pounds of jewelry on my body."

Apple blinked as she took the witch in. "Are you showing your mid-drift?" The princess asked slightly scandalized to see the slightly sheer quality of the fabric around Raven's middle showing that the witch's yellow, skin tight, short sleeved blouse only covered her shoulders and bust.

"It's going to be hot in the desert." Raven defended, Faybelle's homelands were patches of forested oasis surrounded by miles of sand and tall pillars of black lava (and sometimes the remains of an extinct variety of giant) rocks.

"And you can't tell me where you are going, or what you'll be doing." Apple whispered almost betrayed as she snuggled closer.

"No, not yet." Raven said honestly. "But I will tuck you back into bed and call you in sick after I'm done getting a few things."

"What?" Apple asked looking up at the other.

"You haven't eaten, you obviously haven't slept well, you forgot to put your hair into rolls or put moisturizer on your face… and I'm practically holding you upright, if I were to let go you'd crash to the floor." The witch looked down pointedly.

"Oh." Apple peered blearily down in surprise. "I was wondering why I couldn't feel my feet."

"I know that yesterday was difficult for you." Raven hesitated before kissing Apple's temple chastely. "And I'm sorry for that, but right now you need to go back to bed, eat something from the takeout I got you yesterday, and thank the ancestors that someone had invented magical takeout containers that keeps food good and warm for up to three days before trying to get some sleep okay?"

"Why are you always so nice to me?" Apple asked as she was led (carried) back into bed.

"Because I like you." Raven sighed, bracing herself for the custom response of; _But Evil Queen's aren't supposed to's,_ as she turned towards the bathroom to get the spare bottle of shampoo for Daring (she'd give it to Cerise to give to the boy at breakfast instead of Apple).

"Have you ever loved someone… in a non platonic sort of way?" Apple asked instead, making Raven nearly drop the bottle of shampoo.

"Ummm." Raven's mind raced. "Maybe I do… why do you ask?"

"You _do_ love someone?" Apple ignored Raven's question. "Like how much do you love them?"

Raven pinched the bridge of her nose as she walked out of the bathroom and continued to grab things to put into a duffel bag (she mentally patted her back that she had the foresight to make a list so that she wouldn't forget anything if she was distracted).

"It doesn't matter." Raven finally said after a long silence. "She's promised to someone else, and it would be seen as unseemly if my feelings became known to the general public… and I'm pretty sure that she's deck me if she knew. I don't want to risk what little friendship we have so I'm working really hard to get over her as soon as possible."

"She?" Apple's eyes were wide.

"You had to find out about my preferences sometime I suppose." Raven sighed again. "Don't worry Apple I'm not going to be a creep and peek in on you in the shower or whatever else you might be afraid that I'll-"

"I'd _never_ think of you as a creep Raven." Apple chided the witch sternly as she bit into a sandwich. "It's just… a surprise that's all… I was actually talking about the kind of love that involves extreme loyalty, like with an advisor's feelings for their monarch."

Raven looked at Apple oddly. "Well I do have feelings like that too. For you obviously."

"You're afraid of disgracing me." Apple concluded. "But what if we made you a good guy? Like an enchantress who got her orders mixed up, or a meddling matchmaker looking for a good prince for her friend?"

Raven seemed to soften a little even as she shook her head. "Maybe that might pass muster within the human and mage realms, but both fairies and witches are very specific about these kind of things, just the act of poisoning you would be seen as me trying to disgrace you."

"Then how did those realms expect you to go through with your destiny if they looked down on you poisoning me?" Apple demanded growing vexed.

Raven swallowed thickly. "You needn't worry about that, it's… disturbing and you need to keep your mind untroubled so that you can slee-"

"I'm a big girl Raven, just tell me!" Apple ordered tensely.

Raven closed her eyes and bowed her head sadly. "I was expected to force another villain to be chosen for your story… by rendering myself incapable of poisoning you."

"How are you supposed to do that?" Apple shook her head not understanding.

"If the high council had it their way I was to eat the poisoned apple long before it got anywhere near you." Raven stated without emotion. "My unconscious body would then be smuggled out of Ever After and ritualistically cleansed, for a thousand- not necessarily consecutive it would be whenever the priests had the time- hours."

"One of the better potential things that would happen to me is that they could tattoo the blessing symbol of whichever witch religious order wins me in a bid, where I would be stripped of my name and my worldly contacts outside of my family and I would be brought into the fold as a devout priestess living in a mountain somewhere, be called one of the "cleansed ones" regularly, ritualistically deflowered with a stone tool, and pretty much I would have to learn how to dance skyclad in the snow for rituals and stuff."

"Skyclad?" The princess asked sounding a little strangled.

"It's a polite word for naked." Raven clarified.

When Raven looked up to meet Apple's gaze the witch swore that she'd never seen Apple's eyebrows raised that high, and the princess's lips were pursed unhappily. "And what other things could they do with you?" The princess asked trying to remain calm.

"You're not going to like any of em'." Raven warned.

"But you are still going to tell me." Apple growled.

"…I could wake up to find myself married and sold off to one of the honorable houses, the fairytale villain clans that are either witch or fairy or both, married off to the Queen of Heart's harem, Lizzie's harem, some random council member's harem, or… I could be sent to you as your concubine." Raven coughed looking away.

"Aside from marriage I could be left to fight for my honor back in a Wonderlandian gladiator arena, or brought to an assassin's guild to be trained rigorously in order to seek out my mother and kill her, left on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere with limited survival supplies and I must find my way back in order to regain my honor-" Raven stopped when she caught sight of Apple, the princess's lips had disappeared into a fine line, she was as tense as a bow, and the hands gripping her bed sheets were turning white.

"But I was never going to actually do that… probably." Raven laughed nervously as the princess squinted at her. "After the fairytale I was just going to disappear until things calmed down before changing my appearance and name and coming back to hide in plane sight-"

"You _what_?" Apple snapped getting tenser.

"But now none of that has to happen." Raven bobbed her head in a reassuring way.

"You can bet your pointy hat that I wouldn't let that happen!" Apple growled. "What kind of high council are they running over there? What kind of person _thinks_ that any of that is an appropriate way of treating a lone girl who never did anything to them?"

"And I promise you that you will get your happily ever after." Raven finished. "One way or another I'll ensure that it happens."

"I will _not_ let you be taken away by those barbaric nut jobs, and you are not going to change your name and appearance!" Apple ordered with an enraged hiss. "I won't let them or _you_!"

"I will find a way." Raven promised again while slowly backing away. "So don't ever worry about all that, alright? Just focus on getting some rest over the weekend, I'll be back sometime Sunday night or Monday morning. If I have the time I'll even bring back a souvenir."

"Bunch of barbaric old crones who have nothing better to do then use other people for their entertainment…" Apple fumed.

"Have a good weekend Apple, I'll see you when I get back." Raven said as she tried to sneak out the door. Relief flooded her when she spied Kitty waiting just outside the door.

"Waitaminit!" Apple realized. "This secret business of yours doesn't have anything to do with dealing with those crazy people, or destiny does it?" Apple demanded. "Raven? Raven!"

"To Cerise's dorm!" Raven hissed quietly to a snickering Kitty (who found the princess's tone hilarious), the two of them disappearing before Apple stalked out of her dorm.

"Raven? It has nothing to do with that does it? Raven?" Apple called, jogging brusquely down the hall towards Maddie and Kitty's room in the hopes that the witch had fled to them.


	15. Chapter 15

A/n: For those of you who are starting to see more Faybelle/Raven than Apple/Raven be rest assured that I'll be bringing in more rapple later and will be making the playing field more even but first I need to shatter Apple of her ideal pre-packaged perfect fairytale visions before I can start bringing in more rapple, and at the same time I need to establish how the dynamic between Faybelle and Raven would work out into a believable relationship.

So don't worry rapple fans, there will be more fan-service for you later, just please be patient.

Though me bringing in more rapple will not necessarily mean that Apple will win, it will just make things more equal on both fronts and I'm not planning on revealing the winner until the last chaper(s) so that will still be a surprise.

XXX

"This is a really weird dream…" Cerise stared at an apologetic looking Raven dressed in… some sort of really ugly colored foreign garment and a snickering Kitty standing next to her.

"I'm so sorry Cerise." Raven whispered. "But this was the first place I thought of that she wouldn't think to look for me."

"Alright…" Cerise rubbed grit out of her eyes. "I'll bite, who's this "she", and why is she looking for you."

" _Raven! Your secret business trip has nothing to do with your destiny does it? Raven_?" Cerise could hear Apple's voice quite clearly from the hallway, and by the way Raven winced and Kitty's eyebrows rose Cerise could draw an accurate guess to her own questions.

"I take it that Apple is the "she" you were mentioning." Cerise drawled tiredly.

" _Princess Apple White you will stop shouting through the hallways at such an ungodly hour of the morning and you will get back here this instant before I call the RA myself_!" Briar's voice growled from the hall followed by several suspicious thumps.

" _Briar, I know that you're tired but please don't throw things at her_!" Ashlynn's voice followed suit.

Raven covered her face in mortification. "I was almost home free." The witch groaned before turning to her surprise host. "I have some family business that I need to attend to and due to the sensitive nature of it I can't confirm or deny anything about the subject outside my family, the other people involved, or my adopted Wonderlandian clan."

"And that has Apple freaking out." Cerise guessed. "Because she's not allowed to know?"

"Yes, and I am so sorry for waking you and Cedar up." Raven apologized holding up a shampoo bottle. "I was just going to leave this outside your door with a note so that you could give it to Daring at breakfast since Apple should be staying in bed until she gets better." The witch stated.

"Apple's sick?" Cerise asked, taking the shampoo bottle and giving it a whiff, it smelled pretty good.

"She hasn't eaten since yesterday at breakfast or slept well last night. She looked terrible a few minutes ago when I came in to grab some stuff before I had to leave." Raven sighed despairingly.

"Don't worry about Cedar, she could sleep through an explosion." The hooded girl pointed to her still sleeping roommate. "And I can forgive you because you are the one who has to live with that." Cerise then pointed towards the closed door where a scuffle and some surprisingly un-lady-like cursing could be heard.

XXX

"Leave Raven alone!" Briar snarled trying to pin Apple down while avoiding getting kicked in the face. Again. "Whatever this secret business is it's none of your concern!"

"But what if a council of crazy crones force her to get deflowered by a stone thingy while dancing skyclad and fighting off barbaric gladiators before being shipped off to the middle of nowhere and having no choice but to survive the wilderness as she finds her way back and then biting into a poisoned apple and getting her forehead tattooed while she's unconscious and having to wake up to find out that she's been married off into Lizzie's harem? I didn't even know that Lizzie had a harem! And now Raven's being sold off into hers!" Apple declared hysterically.

"Well if she did do all that to become apart of my harem I'd definitely be charmed into becoming smitten with her." Lizzie herself commented to Duchess from further down the hall.

"I won't allow it!" Apple shrieked like a mad woman struggling with renewed vigor. Ashlynn yelping as a fist catches her in the eye. "Unhand me Sleeping Beauty! Stop taking off your clothes and trying to do naughty things to me! Go prick your hand on a spinning needle if you continue to act so un-lady-like!" Apple hollered as she convulsed in her two best friend's holds. "Get. Off. Me! Your naked form has no power over me! You are not Raven! Only she is allowed to do devious things to me! She was born to be mine and mine alone! I will not lose her! I will not submit!"

"Would all of you just stop gawking for like two second and help?" Briar demanded to the growing crowd heatedly.

XXX

"…And that's my cue." Cerise coughed awkwardly over Kitty's helpless belly laughter and headed out the door.

Raven heard her phone chime, the witch looking over her hexts wearily. The first was from Faybelle who was simultaneously warning her that Apple was on the second floor looking for her and informing her, in what Raven swore was a delighted sort of way, that the princess was acting completely off her rocker and that Faybelle had a funny new video that she had just taken with her phone to show her later.

Several more hexts from various friends popped up but Raven chose to ignore them for now.

Raven squeezed her eyes shut and just focused on breathing for a long moment before she hexted Faybelle back with a; _yes I heard all of that I'm hiding in Cedar's dorm, climbing down the balcony with Kitty now_ , and forwarding that to Maddie as well before she grabbed a laughing Kitty off the floor and hooked Cerise and Cedar's emergency foldable ladder to the side of the balcony's stone railing.

XXX

"Well…" Faybelle began after she flew over the girl's dorms to meet the witch and hovered beside Raven as she climbed down the side of the building (Kitty had collected herself long enough to teleport herself down to the ground where she resumed her laughing fit, Maddie holding her up as the cat-girl's mirth shook her frame violently). "They've managed to tie her up and they've decided to take her to the healer's offices… and hey, at least it's provided enough of a distraction for us to slip away quietly."

"I had no idea that she was going to be that…" Raven stopped herself with a forced shake of the head. "She's sleep deprived and she hasn't eaten anything in a while, plus she's probably been through a lot yesterday what with the little adventure we had taken and the shaking of some of her core beliefs… she didn't mean a word of it." The witch told herself firmly.

"Well obviously she was not in her right mind." Faybelle pointed out, holding her tongue when she had the urge to go as far as to say that the princess had been bound to snap at some point with how obsessed the girl was with destiny and having everything be perfect to the point of being unreasonable.

Faybelle bit her lip when she noticed that Raven's mood seemed to plummet the longer the other dwelled on the situation. "For what it's worth… I kind of figured that it would be detrimental to you if her shouting about you up and down the hallways at three-in-the-morning ticked off the wrong people… so when Briar and Ashlynn had finally stopped her I set up temporary magic sound barrier at the ends of the hallway so that at least she couldn't be heard up or down the stares…"

The fairy dug into her pocket and held up a small metallic disk. "And I set off this dampening device incase anybody aside from me tried to film her… my mother set up my electronics to be immune to the jamming spell incase a prank of mine went wrong and I needed to make sure that as little publicity got made of me as possible."

Raven stopped her decent and looked at Faybelle with wide eyes.

"Understand that I did it solely to protect my future wife's reputation." Faybelle sniffed acting as if she didn't care. "And that Heart's girl seemed a little too enchanted by the idea of you going through all of that stuff Apple described in her psycho babble…" The fairy grumbled darkly.

Raven smiled softly her hair and veil swaying gently in the early morning breeze, Faybelle noted that the witch's outfit looked lovely in the dim moonlight with all of it's ghastly colors muted to darker shades. "And it's better if you're the only one who had the ability to document all of that… for your own personal entertainment of course, you are evil after all." Raven hummed knowingly, her eyes bright.

"You know me so well dearest." Faybelle smirked. "Now let's hurry up and elope already, if anything to get you out of that horrid dress."

XXX

"She's slightly malnourished and exhausted to the point where she seems to be seeing things, I'd say that she hasn't had a fully decent meal for a day or two and she hasn't been getting as much sleep as she needs to." Healer Phalange looked over her charts boardly. "I've put her on some sedatives and an I.V. drip, as soon as she wakes I'm putting her on the special peanut butter and ordering the B.R.A.T diet for her prescribed daily meals until I'm satisfied she won't do this again. You all can eat that stuff you found in her room if you'd like, it might teach her to not neglect her body like this." The woman said as she walked out of the private observation room.

"So in other words we'll putting all of this in your floor's fridge." Cerise concluded knowingly while pointing to the takeout boxes she had found while she and Briar had gotten some spare clothes and supplies for the princess while she stayed in the infirmary.

"Now don't be so hasty…" Briar growled menacingly at Apple's snoring form, bearing her teeth as much as her bruised bottom lip and jaw would allow.

"She means that is exactly what we are going to do." Ashlynn said while nursing her black eye with a cold pack.

"Never woulda thunk that Apple could pull off those kind of punches." Cerise murmured in awe as she stared down at the unconscious blonde while holding ice packs to her bruised sides. "Nor did I think that she could scratch and leave a mark. Damn those nails are vicious!"

"Indeed they are." Briar said darkly while looking over the Band-Aids that littered the hooded girl's face and arms, and the gauze on Ashlynn's shoulder that covered a nasty bite wound. "I think that I'll clip them while she's still asleep…"

"Maybe I should do that while Cerise takes you back to our dorm. I can stay with her for the rest of the night." Ashlynn advised, worried at what might happen if she let the vexed princess anywhere near Apple right now.

"I just don't understand what had gotten into her." Briar grumbled scratching her head. "I know that Apple can be a little neurotic at times but I've never seen her just lose it like this."

"We can ask her when she's back to being coherent." Cerise gently took Briar's hand and led her away. "We still don't have to wake up for several hours yet, let's get some sleep."

XXX

Raven was only allowed the time to re-center herself in the face of the hot, dry air and incredibly bright sun after they stepped through the large mirror used for traveling between long distances before they were all whisked away into an air conditioned carriage designed to travel over the rolling expanses of sand surrounding the travel port's smooth outer black stone walls. Mirror travel was a quick and efficient way to get from one place to another but the side effects left most disoriented and more than a little shaky on their feet (and as a result of so many worlds being quarantined the giant mirrors located in Ever After High's very own travel port lay mostly empty when weekends came around making it easy for them all to get away unseen by everybody save for the golems working the controls).

Inside the carriage Raven was treated to a surprise nose piercing much to her displeasure, at the very least it had been quick and the fairy guy doing it had used some sort of topical numbing stuff, plus it helped big time that the person who had pierced her nose had obviously known what he was doing and was being really nice about everything. Explaining things as he worked about how it might hurt a little bit more than usual because he was using a small tube-like stud (which was still bigger than the usual) that would allow for the nath to be worn right away, and kindly dabbing away some stray tears that escaped Raven's eyes (because even with the topical numbing stuff the needle still stung) with a tissue.

While Raven sat poking the tip of her numb nose and the nice man who had just pierced her gave Maddie a satchel with some vials of sanitizing solution and explained that Raven was to clean her piercing three times a day, the witch took a moment to look out the window to view her surroundings.

The dessert territories of this particular fairy realm looked just as pretty as a postcard with it's rolling sandy dunes and the black rock spires standing hundreds of feet tall above the ground, some of the larger ones even had clouds surrounding them and if Raven paid close attention she could see that a few actually had faces on them.

"They look better at night." Faybelle said as she scooted closer. "The ones that aren't deceased giants, and are too small to do much with, have been carved with ancient runes that glow at night and the other, much larger, formations have been carved hollow to create vertical village communities, you can see the glow from the windows at night as well."

"So a bunch of these really big spires are actually entire villages?" Raven asked in awe her eyes widening with wonder.

Faybelle nodded. "The rock holds a great deal of magical power from the earth within it's stone so much so that each is able to create it's very own eco-system including different climates, plants and animals all living in and on the rock. If there are a bunch of spires really close to one another the magic becomes strong enough to create climates on the surrounding ground stable enough to make large patches of semi-tropical oasis dotting the landscape."

"Amazing!" Raven breathed. "But what happens if there is a sand storm?"

"That is where the genius of our witch and fairy ancestors comes in, the people from long ago constructed magical barricades tall enough to defend their homes from oncoming storms both groups have lived here for thousands of years, so long that they've become apart of the eco-system, as long as they continue to live and preform magic in the villages the leftover magic is directed to the shields." Faybelle said as she studied the witch's reaction, internally please that there was genuine interest on Raven's features.

"A magical symbiotic relationship between the people and the land." Raven sighed dreamily. "This reminds me of the relationship the farmers of my homelands have with the earth that they work with."

"Ah yes I heard about that." Faybelle nodded knowledgably. "It is believed that the magic preformed in the day to day lives of the people who live on your lands combined with the magic produced from several species of rare fauna that are protected on the Queen's lands nourishes the land and helps make it far more fertile than the lands of surrounding kingdoms."

"Well the high council, Grand Coven, and most other witch and fairy lands know that is the real reason why the lands are so fertile… however much of the kingdoms surrounding us for some reason keep trying to claim that it's because of the alkaline content in the soil or something, every once in a while they send some gullible fools trying to get us to let them mine away the soil to sell, every single time we educate them and show them the evidence and then they get super angry at the same lords who sent them to us." Raven scratched her chin with an exasperated huff.

"Seems like an awfully stupid way to harass you." Faybelle said, albeit not very surprised since there were human kingdoms surrounding the Queen territories and since many of those human kingdoms had inbred idiots for rulers.

"The lords want the right to hunt the remaining endangered local wildlife that live on the Queen territory." Kitty grumbled irritably. "It's in the fine print of the contracts from the people trying to get access to the soil, investors get free reign on the areas they are stripping of natural resources."

"So they're trying to gyp you and the contractors… for a creepy taxidermy head on their wall?" The man who did Raven's piercing asked, his thin eyebrow creeping high on his dark skinned forehead.

"The hide of a special species of fresh water Silkie is said to give a human the ability to breathe underwater and there is a species of miniature wooly dragon serpents whose blood is believed to heal all ills- that is false by the way, it's only a small ingredient in a common remedy for certain types of poisons." Raven informed pinching the bridge of her nose. "And the magical plants that protect them all from poachers have sap that some royal ladies would kill for because some old wives' tale says that it helps smooth out wrinkles."

"And your lands border the North Sea, where the mere-folk live in their underwater city a few miles from your lands. The same mere-folk who have refused trade of the highly valuable Dessenti sea sponge with all the close by human kingdoms save for the King lands." Faybelle realized. "And since the Silkie pelts give humans the ability to breathe under water and since mere-blood and stomach enzymes reacts violently to wooly dragon serpent blood, a species that is all but extinct save for the small colonies living deep in the Queen lands… damn that's low, even for the humans from that area."

"I'm guessing from ya'll's serious expressions that this is a bad thing?" The lone male fairy asked the girls.

"Dessenti is the main ingredient in a super expensive illegal drug, but it doesn't cause super crazy brain trips like most drugs, it causes the senses in non-Wonderland humans to become super alert and gives them super strength." Maddie explained while she giggled madly. "It causes a whole bunch of damage to the human taking it and the crashes when the drug wears off are not fun at all so they keep having to take more and more to keep up their abilities, by the way what's your name?" The girl tilted her head to the side curiously.

"I-it's Moss… I'm Faybelle's second cousin, and what does a drug that makes a bunch of humans turn into super beings have to do with anything?" Moss asked.

"Super soldiers." Faybelle stated grimly. "Many lords in the kingdoms neighboring the Queen, King, and the mere-people's territories have never been keen about non-humans having control over such valuable resources. Over the centuries their ancestors have mined and hunted and stripped their lands of essential natural resources, and now they are solely dependent on imports from lands that are either run by non-humans or run by humans who allow many diverse races live on their lands."

"Actually it's more about a group of a meager few lords wanting to gain power and rights over valuable resources and the people who are protected by our lands than it is about racism." Raven corrected. "Up until a few generations ago coups and people itching to claim land through war-like means, like these guys, used to be prevented from forming by the protection of the old fairytale laws which state that only direct descendants of fairytales can rule over the lands that they already own or gain and their allies are always protected under that same law."

"Used to? As in it's not anymore?" Moss asked wide-eyed.

"The current Headmaster Grimm's grandfather dissolved some key acts of this ancient legal document making certain areas vulnerable to being conquered by other kingdoms." Faybelle informed looking sidelong towards Raven. "Apparently the Queen lands are one of those places."

"But that's only a problem if my family continues carrying the title for the Evil Queen." Raven said looking determined. "If I can get out of signing the Book and becoming the Evil Queen then the title will go to a different clan and the terms for my people's land reverts to the protection laws under the Grand Coven's derestriction, no one will be able touch us or our allies after that without severe consequences. We've already sent the Grand Coven all the evidence they need to take down those lords once the third part of this marriage ceremony is finalized, my grandmother has already arranged it."

"And by marrying you in this token marriage I get the title and the Thorn clan gets three powerful new allies." Faybelle finishes looking at Raven with a new level of respect. "I can see why my mother is so eager to get this done and over with so quickly with having two ceremonies instead of one this first go around."

Raven smiled shyly back at Faybelle and shrugged modestly. "Now you see why I jumped into all of this so eagerly? Between my family's honor and the fate of the people I'm supposed to protect I have everything to gain from going against destiny and everything to lose if I don't."

"Wait, wait, wait… Are you sayin' that for the first time in centuries, that there is a legitimate threat of a war breaking out in Ever After? Over some land, the parts of some creatures that aren't found pretty much anywhere else, and a designer super drug? Moss waived his hands agitatedly.

"And let's not forget the possible destruction of the most fertile lands found in Ever After." Faybelle reminded. "The Queen lands grow over eighty percent of Ever After's magical agricultural raw materials, lots of the plants that they grow are very difficult to plant in other places, including in the fairy realms."

"The King lands too, the Good King has started bringing in farmers from the Queen lands to start some new crops and he has started a program that is trying to expand their small remaining magical forests and reintroducing some long lost fauna into them, as a result their fields are thriving." Raven added with an innocent smile.

Moss gestured confusedly with his hands. "So boil that all down and… y'all are sayin' that you're goin' against a bunch of crazy people tryin' to destroy a major supporting import… for what purpose exactly?"

"As far as we've been able to figure out it's mostly for power and money if they get control over the lands they'd make lots of money from stripping it all down and using the raw materials to wage war against their neighbors." Kitty said while rolling her eyes. "These idiots have been so out of practice with the art of battle strategy that they're willing to deprive their lands of the support that are constantly supplied to their people from the Queen lands for the sake of building themselves up."

"Right…" Moss covered his face. "Because it couldn't have just been about a simple restoring of honor to a new ally now could it?"

XXX

"Ouch. What happened to your face Cerise?" Hunter asked first thing as he sat down at the breakfast table, all the bookball players had agreed to sit in the same place early that morning to give themselves a pep talk about the upcoming game. "Congratulations for getting Daring to let you on the team by the way, but seriously, did you try to give a cat a bath?" The boy asked gently touching one of the scratches on her cheek.

"Apple White lost it, Duchess says that Briar and Ashlynn had to hold her down while Cerise tied her up so that she would stop hitting people." Sparrow tattled gleefully. "The perfect princess finally found something that she couldn't handle."

"Apple found out that the original Prince Charming was into necrophilia?" Daring asked as he and his brother sat down with their breakfast. "Ouch. Cerise what happened to your face?"

" _Who was a_ _what_?" Dexter yelped his eyes wide."

"A few of us tried to find clues to where the Book may currently be by going into it's memories… it was very traumatizing to find out that many previous assumptions about how our ancestors really were… well let's just say that I have… some thinking to do…" The prince coughed weakly.

"Into Necrophilia?" Hunter raised a brow.

"It's of little to no consolation to me but at least my ancestor wasn't described as a drunk who misunderstood his assigned job so completely, I'm not the only one who's destiny it is to portray a bad guy masquerading as a good guy." Daring looked at Hunter pointedly.

"Why are you looking at me like that…?" Hunter asked suspiciously. "Why-? What did my ancestor do?"

"Before we get into all of that, Raven told me to give this to you before she left for her trip." Cerise interrupted, sliding the nice smelling shampoo bottle over to the blond prince.

"Oooh!" Daring squealed while clapping excitedly. "Is this the shampoo that Raven promised to give to me so that I could try it out?"

Daring reached out to grab Dexter's shoulder as his wide-eyed brother tried to sneak away (because new beauty products for Daring meant one thing in their family; he and Darling were going to be dragged off to take a surprise shower and then they would be dutifully studied throughout the day to see just how well whatever potion worked on them).

"I think so… she was kind of in a hurry to get off campus… she just gave it to me and ran." Cerise said carefully.

"I don't blame her, I'd run too if what Duchess had said about Apple chasing her was true." Sparrow snorted.

Cerise kicked him under the table.

"OW! Hey, they'll find out later anyway, and besides Apple is the one who tried to scratch _your_ face off!" Sparrow defended under his cousin's glare.

"Wait, Apple did that to you?" Hunter asked.

"That's what I was trying to tell you." Sparrow said excitedly. "Apple White's lost it! She went crazy and woke up half the girl's dorm chasing after Raven to stop her from going on this secret family business trip, Briar and Ashlynn had to literally pin her to the floor to keep her from doing something crazy."

"I knew that Raven was going away for the weekend on a business trip but why would Apple freak out over it? Raven told us herself that the situation with her kingdom is complicated and much of the business that she conducts must remain a secret." Daring asked confused.

"Duchess said that Apple said something about a bunch of crones trying to force Raven to do a bunch of crazy stuff so that they could sell her off to Lizzie's harem." Sparrow shrugged. "You know how weird witch and fairy politics can get. Though Apple could have made that all up in her head… Duchess said that Apple got pretty crazy there for a minute."

"But Raven has already been adopted by two Wonderlandian clans." Dexter said confused. "All that would be needed is a recommendation from either Maddie or Kitty and Raven could be apart of Lizzie's harem no problem."

"You mean that Lizzie actually has a harem?" Sparrow asks eyes wide.

"I'm more concerned about the fact that Apple tried to scratch Cerise's face off and you keep saying that Ashlynn was one of the ones holding Apple down." Hunter cut in urgently, looking pleadingly at Cerise. "Is Ashlynn ok? Apple didn't hurt her too did she?"

Cerise's guilty hesitation was all the answer he needed.

"Green gods." Hunter swore before taking off running.

"She's in the infirmary!" Cerise called after him.

"You're still able to play right?" Daring asked.

"Oh yeah, the healers said that a few scratches and superficial bruises won't hinder me at all, and the ice packs have all but gotten rid of the bruises." Cerise waved off the boy's concern, thanking her inherited fast-healing abilities for the thousandth time in her life. "Now what's our plan of attack?"

"Hey guys, sorry I'm late what have you- Cerise what happened to your face?" Tiny asked as he came up to the table.

XXX

"Wow." Raven whispered looking up.

"I don't know if "wow" quite covers it." Kitty mumbled staring up at the giant organic looking castle made up of rune-carved mossy rock.

"Your family lives in this?" Raven pointed above her.

"Well… some of my family and the people who work here are a little larger than Tiny so it's actually quite cozy in there at times." Faybelle hummed equal parts proud and amused.

The fairy's three wide-eyed guests turned to look at her incredulously.

"Did you say a little larger than-?" Raven began but was cut off as a giant sized fae that looked like a cross from a tree and a rock formation ambled past them.

"Okay, maybe some of them are lots bigger than Tiny." Faybelle mused as she got a better look at the family's head gardener (in the distance she saw Moss slinking back inside the castle, no doubt going to curl up in a horrified little ball under his bed after the talk that they just had with him).

"Oh good, it's about time you all got here." A dry voice drawled monotonously, making Faybelle straighten immediately when a figure approached them.

"Mother, it's lovely to see you." Faybelle greeted while standing stiff as a board.

The woman Faybelle was talking to looked like an older, more intimidating, version of the girl, with much larger wings, which twitched towards Faybelle almost fondly. The woman wore a dark green silk ruffled lady's overcoat with a long train in the back and skin tight black pants that were framed by the cut of the coat where the cloth parted to normally allow room for a full set of skirts (a surprising thing to see someone wearing so well in the desert but the Thorn castle was located in the middle of an oasis so the weather was much cooler within the protection of the black rocks and trees surrounding them).

Her long bone white hair with dark green strips decorating it was worn down in three sections; two were braded and sported decorative rings on them as they hung gracefully in front and the rest was left to cascade down her back like a waterfall of spider's silk, the crown the Evil Fairy wore had two horns that looked like large thorny branches that were growing out of her skull.

Raven put her left fist into her palm and bowed deeply to the woman respectfully, politely not speaking unless she was asked to and giving the mother and daughter some illusion of privacy.

"Good, your future bride has come with some semblance of acceptable manners along with her potential assets." Raven heard the woman's voice remark neutrally, which coming from the Evil Fairy was some pretty high praise. "Now come. We need to get you two washed and prepped for the first ceremony to be done right away, tomorrow we will do the second and the third day we will discuss the new developments you discovered yesterday from your little adventure."

With that the Evil Fairy turned and started walking regally into the castle, silently commanding the four girls to follow after her.


	16. Chapter 16

"Could you pretty please point me in the direction of where Ashlynn Ella might be? I'm her boyfriend and I heard that she's hurt, is she okay? Do you know if she's okay?" Hunter begged a surprised receptionist, who hesitantly wrote a room number down on a piece of paper and handed it to the boy.

"Thank you so much." Hunter praised with feeling before sprinting off.

Hunter paused in front of a private room door, having the presence of mind to collect himself so that he wouldn't scare Ashlynn by freaking out in front of her.

" _Your dad is cheating on your mom with a man and she knows about it_?" Briar's muffled voice came through the door incredulously.

Hunter looked up and down the empty hallway before cupping his ear to the door.

" _It's more complicated then it sounds_." Apple's voice sighed. " _Mom said that daddy tried being a good husband and Prince Charming but he was so unhappy in the first few months of their marriage… and then mom discovered that she didn't have any romantic feelings for him, she just thought of him as a friend, and they couldn't get divorced because of the scandal it would have caused so they struck a deal with each other_ …" Apple trailed off.

" _Mom said that my grandmother told her on her wedding night to not expect a happy ending or a true love that is described in fairytales… that she should not expect a faithful husband or things to be anything like how the story describes a happy ending. That she should find a way to be content and just get over it_." Apple stated sadly.

" _How horrible_." Ashlynn's voice gasped, and Hunter couldn't help but nod in agreement.

" _I never liked your grandmother_." Briar stated nonchalantly. " _But how does this explain why you lost your damn mind last night_?"

" _Because it wasn't just that_!" Apple almost snapped. " _First Faybelle tells me that my mother used to bully the Evil Queen and was part of the reason why she went insane and later when I asked my mom she admitted that this was true, and then when we went into the Book's memories I got stuck in Faybelle's story and Sleeping Beauty, who looked exactly like you, kept taking off her clothes and trying to seduce me, and then when we came back we found out that the Headmaster locked his own brother, his name is Giles by the way, in the school archives and cursed him so that he could only speak riddlish because he was like, the original Rebel! So when we un-cursed him he told us that rumor about us disappearing if we don't sign the Book is all a big lie because he knows people who never signed the Book and some of them are still alive centuries after the fact_!"

There was a soft bang like a fist hitting a wall before Apple continued. " _And then along with all of that on my mind I find out that there's these scars on Raven's back like somebody had whipped her when she was small but she only tells people she trusts about them and I had to find out by accident because apparently she doesn't trust me, and there are these secret business trips that she's taking that she can't tell me about because not only doesn't she trust me but apparently there are people out there who would try to hurt her and her family if they found out, and apparently me and my family are practically the only ones who see her becoming the Evil Queen as a good thing because even the high council would prefer it if she bit the poisoned apple before I even got close to it so that they could spirit her away and ritualistically cleanse her of her dishonor, even though she's done nothing wrong, and either sell her off to a religious order, marry her off, or try to kill her in an impossible quest or battle_ …"

Apple took a big inhale of breath. " _And guess what? On top of all of that I find out that she loves me. Like both in an extreme loyalty sort of way that you read about in books between a king and his favorite advisor and… maybe in a romantic… sort of way, I'm not sure_."

" _Romantic sort of way_?" Ashlynn asked.

" _Faybelle had said that Raven loved me… I thought that she was just referring to Raven's level of loyalty to me but… when I asked her if she had ever loved anyone she got the wrong idea and told me that she was in love with a girl who's promised to someone else, who is in such standing that it would be seen as unseemly if anybody found out that she has feelings for them, and that she's trying really hard to get over them so that her feelings wouldn't ruin their friendship_." Apple explained. "A _nd that she's scared that if this person ever found out… if I ever found out I'd… hurt her_." Apple's voice started to waver and Hunter could hear her sniffle.

" _That… explains so much_!" Briar stated as if the universe's secrets were suddenly revealed to her. " _Why she keeps trying to do nice things for you, why she keeps singing your praises despite you nagging on her all the time, and it explains why she's never turned down all of that dark and gloomy stuff you keep giving her despite the fact that she hates Evil Queen regalia_!"

" _Briar_!" Ashlynn reprimanded as Apple started to make muffled crying sounds.

" _Oops… sorry Apple_." Briar coughed apologetically. " _Really I am, it sounds like you've been put through the ringer the past few days… is that why you were chasing her through the halls? You were afraid that Raven's business dealings involved the high council trying to get her to submit to their whims_?"

" _Raven said that even though she can't be my villain… that she was going to make sure I got my fairytale, no matter what it took. She had told me that before she had thought to not sign the Book she was going to poison me and then willingly give up her kingdom and birthright back to her grandmother or the Good King, change her appearance and name, and live as an enchantress in the middle of nowhere_!" Apple sobbed. " _And that if the Rebel thing worked out she'd find me a new villain! I don't want a new villain I want Raven! I don't care if she's nothing like how my mother described villains to be, I don't want her to go away and just… leave me! I'd miss her_!"

"… _Apple_ …" Briar said slowly. " _I know that you are very fond of Raven and all but you do realize that she's not a toy being taken away from you right? She's kind of a living real person… with feelings of her own, you know_?"

" _Of course I know that_!" Apple snapped angrily.

" _Honey, what Briar is trying to say is that… it's a bit confusing to understand why you are freaking out about losing Raven as your villain when she has promised to provide you with a new one. Now that you know that no one is in danger of disappearing you can rest easy and still get your fairytale, the only thing different will be that you get a new villain_." Ashlynn soothed diplomatically. " _And it sounds like becoming the Evil Queen would be very troublesome for Raven, you don't want her to go through all that hardship do you_?"

" _But I_ …" Apple hesitated. " _I don't want a new villain I… I don't know why but I don't want to give up Raven. Ever since I was a kid I've been told by my tutors and parents that there was someone beautiful born especially for me, to live beside me and make my happily ever after come true, and that's exactly Raven's job as my villain… I can't imagine anybody else standing in her place_!"

The room went silent for a moment.

" _Sweetie I think that your family and your tutors were talking about Daring, not Raven, when they told you that_." Ashlynn said slowly.

" _Oh you silly, Daring is the prince, he's just supposed to wake me up and smile charmingly at the adoring crowds as he helps me rule my kingdom_." Apple laughed wetly. " _It's a villain's job to make sure that the princess gets their happy ending and Raven is the most awesome-est most beautiful villain that there ever was! Even if she isn't alluringly wicked, she's adorably nice, and she always supports me even with un-maidenly things and ideals that she herself doesn't believe in, and she was born specifically to be my villain! Who else but Raven would they have been talking about?"_

" _Daring_!" Briar snapped sounding fed up. " _They were talking about Daring_!"

" _I can see where that is a common misconception but I assure you that Raven was the one that they had described for me_." Apple said primly.

In the following silence Hunter took the time to lift his head to squint at the closed door quizzically. Did he just hear? Yep, _yep_ he did.

Hunter didn't have time to ponder on the princess's words much because it was at that moment that he realized that he wasn't alone.

Hunter would have screamed at the sight of over half the bookball team crouched behind him if Cerise hadn't held him still and covered his mouth so that he didn't make much sound.

The huntsman's eye ticked irritably once he calmed down enough to see Daring, Dexter, _and_ Sparrow put fingers to their mouths telling him to shush.

XXX

Ashlynn and Briar looked at Apple, who was sitting up in her bed, for a long moment before slowly turning their heads to each other and sharing a look. Ashlynn seeming completely baffled and Briar's eyebrow was twitching so much it started to appear to take a life of it's own.

"What?" Apple sniffed cagily. "Why are you guys looking at each other like that?"

Briar closed her eyes, pursed her lips and motioned for Ashlynn to take the lead on this one. Ashlynn scowled and promptly flicked Briar's shoulder in retaliation but nevertheless turned to Apple with the most understanding look that she could muster.

"Honey, are you saying that you feel as though you and Raven have a _special_ connection?" Ashlynn asked carefully.

"Of course we do." Apples sniffled sounding happy.

"And you like the way she's so nice to you despite it not being a villain thing?" Ashelynn asked again.

"It's grown on me." Apple giggled while blushing. "Yeah I like it a lot."

"And you care for her a lot…?"

"Yes!"

"You like buying her gifts."

"She barely had a proper wardrobe when she moved in let alone one fit for a queen!" Apple scoffed at the memory.

"You like holding her hand and hugging her practically every time you see her." Ashlynn recalled.

"She's so warm and huggable and her hair smells so nice." Apple sighed dreamily.

"Do you get warm fuzzy feeling's in your chest and tummy when she's around?"

"All the time and sometimes my heart feels like it's going super fast or it even skips a beat when she does something cute."

"You think that she's beautiful."

"The most beautiful and awesome person on the planet!"

"You want to spend the rest of your life with her by your side?"

"Forever and ever after!"

Ashlynn hesitated. "In sickness and in health, through good and bad?"

"Of course! As long as she's there I'll always be with her!"

"You care for her differently than your other friends?"

"Yes, I've noticed that on more than one occasion that I care the most about her approval more than than anybody else."

"You care for her more than you do Daring." Ashlynn concluded.

"Well, yeah, Daring is a boy. I've never felt the same way about boys as I do Raven." Apple shrugged as if this were a common fact.

"You love Raven very much?"

"With my whole heart."

"You want to make a life with her?"

"We can raise our kids together and spend so much time with each other."

"You want to take Raven as your lawfully wedded wife!" Briar cut in, ducking out of the way when Ashlynn made a swipe at her.

"Yes I do! I want Raven to become my wife because I love her and I want to spend the rest of my happily ever after with her!" Apple declared in a joyful squeal.

Silence descended upon the room once again.

"Apple… I want you to stop and think about everything that you just said." Briar ordered when it became clear that the princess was so wrapped up in the moment that she had frozen with both of her hands clasped together excitedly and a happy smile on her face.

"I heard myself the first time…" Apple trailed off shakily. "I think I did at least… um did I just say that I'm… um… th- that I'm… in love with Raven?"

"You said that you wanted to marry her and make a bunch of little blonde witchlings." Briar nodded her head. "I distinctly heard that."

"Oh…" Apple squeaked before falling backwards onto her pillows with a soft thump.

"Apple?" Ashlynn moved to her unconscious friend worriedly.

"Either she's fainted or we've just helped kill her with a heart attack." Briar mumbled looking her unconscious friend over. "I'll go get a healer." The princess declared while opening the door-

-To find a guilty looking Hunter crouched down by the door, Daring and Cerise in "apparent deep discussion" about Band-Aid designs further down the hall (the prince's hair was suspiciously tousled like he had been whisked away by something very fast), and across the hall Sparrow had his arm around Dexter's waist and was forcing the two of them to have their back to her, Sparrow was obviously trying to pretend that he was pointing out something interesting in one of the decorative flower pictures lining the walls but it wasn't working because Dexter kept trying to turn his shocked gaze back to the open door and he kept making these scandalized little squawks that Sparrow tried to muffle by pinning the boy's head to his shoulder with a firm hand.

"Oh hi Briar." Cerise waved casually (Hunter using the distraction to slip past Briar and over to Ashlynn's side where he promptly began fussing over her black eye and the bandage on her shoulder). "The guys and I had just wanted to come by to see how you were."

"Uh huh." Briar narrowed her eyes disbelievingly. "And did Tiny at least have the mind to politely back out of your eavesdropping mission?"

Quiet whistling followed by the retreating steps of a giant were heard outside the room's window.

"I better not be hearing about this in Blondie's blog!" Briar shouted to the giant's whistling retreating figure after she shoved the window open and stuck her head out (because as nice as Tiny was, he could be a terrible gossip, could put little old ladies to shame with all the information he had on everybody and his inability to keep a secret for long, especially when asked directly, which was why he was Blondie's favorite source).

"How did she know what we were up to?" Daring scratched his head confused.

"Briar's got the intuition of a witch." Cerise informed sagely.

XXX

Raven focused on chewing the tangy watery fruit slices that the water nymph in front of her kept shoving into her mouth while the woman's two sisters mercilessly scrubbed every inch of Raven's body with sandalwood scented soap, the witch pointedly looking around the giant bathing chamber and not gawking at the incredibly well endowed gorgeous naked women surrounding her, getting her ready for her first wedding ritual.

Distracting herself with her surroundings only worked for a little while, Raven marveled an the sheer massiveness of the bathing chamber, the polished white marble standing in stark contrast to the black rock that could be seen peeking up over the glass roof which covered the entire chamber in a large dome supported by a spider web pattern of thin metal supports, the six polished white marbled pillars helping to keep the roof up, the plush white carpet runners running along the foot paths of the rectangular room, the giant ornate fountains placed in the center of each pool depicting statues of creatures from the darkest depths of foreign seas shooting streams of water out of their mouths, the tiny colorful golems shaped to look and act like fish swimming trough the water of the pool, and then finally the gold leaf decorated statue reliefs lining the tops of the pillars and upper portions of the rooms…

And that is where Raven found trouble.

The witch blushed bright red when she finally noticed that the reliefs were depictions of various… sexual acts in either for self-pleasure, for two people, or a whole group…

"Maybe we should try… that one." Raven could hear Kitty say to Maddie as she pointed to one of the reliefs; the two of them were sitting along the edge of one of the smaller pools off to the side and looking around them with interest.

Before the witch could stop herself her gaze followed the path of Kitty's finger, Raven found her face flushing even hotter than before.

The women all around her giggled at her reaction.

"Ah yes, that's right, you did say that you were raised by humans for most of your life." Faybelle mused; apparently she had also caught sight of the witch's reaction. "I suppose there must be parts of your education that the cultural rift between those two groups that could not be gaped, it at least explains how you can handle being around those Ever After humans for extended periods of time so well."

"They did their best." Raven defended. "And I can assure you that the Lady Good King did teach me about ritualized fornication… and a bunch of other related topic but…" Raven winced at the memory.

" _Lady Good King_ taught you that kind of thing?" Faybelle laughed into her hand.

"She was very thorough…" Raven grimaced. "Said that she did a lot of… " _personal_ " research into it…"

"Traumatized you did she?" Faybelle and the nymphs snickered.

"Traumatized me, the Good King, maybe Maddie, several scholars who had been in that particular section of the university library at the time… the only person whom she had not traumatized was my grandmother, who was with us via a secure mirror contact, and it only got worse when my grandmother kept encouraging her and adding her own information into that particular talk." Raven said without any hint of shame whatsoever because it had been incredibly embarrassing at the time and it was still incredibly embarrassing whenever one or the other woman brought the subject up.

"It _was_ traumatizing!" Maddie confirmed. "…However useful it had become later on…"

" _I don't wanna know_!" Raven called back causing another round of giggles from the fae-folk.

"I must say that Apple White must be getting quite the education while living with you." Faybelle asked deceptively lightly, just enough that Raven didn't catch the inquisitive approach that the fairy had taken the conversation or the plotting gleam in Faybelle's eye.

"I don't tell her about that kind of stuff." Raven shook her head. "Apple is willing to be diplomatic about other cultures that are incredibly different than hers, and she's adorably sweet when she tries to understand platonic aspects of my culture and when she asks me to walk her through the various rituals for witch holidays… but she's just way too innocent about… let's just say certain aspects of life, sometimes to the point where it's difficult to believe sometimes…" Raven cleared her throat. "So I've brought the issue up with Cupid and she's agreed that when she has the time she'll flesh out Apple's… and Daring's current understandings so that their wedding night won't end up a complete disaster… with one of them getting hurt or traumatized."

If it were any other prince and princess Faybelle would be laughing, but since she'd be the one to assume responsibility for them soon… "You're going above and beyond with those two, you do realize this right?" she spoke over the nymph's grumblings of inadequate instruction from humans towards their children about intimacy.

"Yeah." Raven smiled wryly. "But I can't help it, aside my family duties to them they've… grown on me I guess you could say, so it's natural for me to worry about that kind of stuff with their futures."

"Can you take care of that for me before I gain the title and responsibility?" Faybelle asked hopefully while she cringed at the mental picture of herself dragging those two off to explain that there was more to the act of lovemaking than just for the goal of creating heirs… and that while the act itself may be mostly instinct, without the right preparation or knowledge on how to do things, one, the other, or both could end up with torn or bruised bits… or knowing how taboo sex was to many human cultures they'd end up terrifying each other and… Faybelle did not want to deal with that, because she knew that Apple would tell Ashlynn or Blondie about it and then they'd drag Faybelle in, because it would be Faybelle's responsibility then to- No. _No, no, no_ … no she was _not_ dealing with that ever!

The nymphs listened to the conversation attentively as they ushered the witch and fairy out of the water and down the carpeted path towards the room where they would both be covered in henna tattoos.

"I understand." Raven nodded in understanding, not looking too pleased with the idea of having to tell two teenagers the advanced version of _The Talk_ herself. "I'll do my best to give them as much instruction in as possible, but it's keeping them from running away that is my-"

"I'll take care of that." Faybelle promised. "I have several people who are their friends who owe me favors, they will help you."

"Thanks." Raven breathed. "Turning to wave goodbye to Maddie and Kitty as she was led away, the two waving back before turning their attentions to an attendant who would be taking them in another direction for them to be fitted into ceremonial dresses for the observers of the wedding ritual.

XXX

"Why did you drag me into the girl's showers?" Dexter demanded as he flailed wildly in his brother's hold, squeezing his eyes shut so that the soapy suds being worked into his hair would not get into his eyes.

"No one uses them." Daring said knowingly. "And besides the bathroom back at our dorm is too small to fit all three of us in there. Look at Darling, she doesn't mind being in here." The blonde pointed to their sister who was calmly sitting on a plastic stool and lathering the shampoo into her hair.

"That's because she's a girl! She's supposed to be in here!" Dexter shrieked. "I'm stark naked! What if someone comes in!

Darling giggled. "Well your screeching should ward them off brother dear."

"Why are you being so cooperative?" Dexter demanded, because usually Daring had to wrestle them both down to be washed or sprayed or whatever and having Daring's full focus on him was not helping his escape at all.

"I'm in here willingly because I've heard good things about Raven's specially made beauty products from the and I've always wanted to try them out." Darling hummed serenely as she breathed in the lovely scent of the shampoo. It smelled like apples, cloves, and pumpkin spice.

"Well… it does smell pretty nice…" Dexter grumbled. "And Raven is really good at making stuff like this… she gave me what she had left over of those batches of that really nice cologne and that tin of scented magically heated shaving cream she had made as a gift to the Good King for the witch's holiday of Mabon."

" _That's_ why you smelled so good?" Daring sputtered indignantly. "And you didn't tell me about the cologne?"

"Well I can't grow a beard yet so you got to use the heated shaving cream." Dexter grumbled while stroking his smooth, hairless chin. "And besides that, at the time the Rebel movement was still new and Raven was getting some flack from the Royals about Ashlynn turning over to the Rebel side… she didn't want to deal with people accusing her of trying to poison me, or anybody trying to frame her for poisoning me if some Royal decided to go the extra mile…"

"Hmm I suppose she's was right to be cautious…" Daring admitted. "But still I was driving myself mad trying to find more heated shaving cream, they don't sell any in the village, and I could not find an online outlet that had that particular scent of… I don't even _know_ what that scent was. And the brands that I tested were luke-warm at best with the heated part!"

"Raven said that it was a mix of platypus tail and snapping tall dragon's root, both are grown in her home kingdom." Dexter informed.

"Well no wonder I couldn't find it." Daring grumbled. "Both of those are endangered plants at Ever After and they're mostly used for rituals or extremely expensive perfumes." The prince sighed despairingly. "If I had known how rare its ingredient's were I would've tried to make it last longer… and I wouldn't have taken it to practice with me where Sparrow and Hunter were gleefully able to swipe some."

"Raven was happy that you guys had liked it so much." Dexter leaned his head back as Daring rinsed his hair using the flexible showerhead, basking in the feel of the hot water before speaking again. "Since they were both Rebels and since you said that I had gotten that stuff from somewhere I couldn't remember… they kind of figured out on their own that Raven was the one who made that stuff. Hunter gracefully said that he'd be happy with a different scent combination of more commonly found plants for his shaving cream and cologne in exchange for him collecting all the ingredients needed for the potions himself and a payment of three silver apples every time he comes to her to make more."

"And Sparrow?" Daring asked sounding a little more on edge, the prince worried that Raven might be getting conned by the redheaded boy into making things for him.

"She's got him bent over a barrel." Dexter snorted amused. "If he wants to get the nice things with the expensive or rare ingredients that only she makes because of her unique access to the little sample gifts farmers from her lands give to her or her grandmother in thanks for offering them so much protection… he has to pay his way with money, or the raw ingredients needed to make what he wants, books and other ingredients she uses for her personal studies, and he owes her little formal favors under a legal contract."

Daring looked down at his brother with a raised brow.

"He really, _really_ likes the street cred he gets by being in possession of things that none of the other musicians can find anywhere in Ever After, no matter how hard they search… as you well know from your experience with that after shave." Dexter said with a teasing grin.

"Raven and a few other Rebel witches have formed a small group that works like this." Darling informed her eldest brother a tad smugly while she rinsed her own hair. "Most Rebels know that they are the ones you go to if you need a spell or a potion that you can't get in the village, rumor has it that they even have some secret Royal clients who come to them for the hush, hush embarrassing stuff. All they ask for in exchange for their services is either money or some form of trade. Raven is the one you go to if you want to procure a certain type of shampoo or transparent shoe polish to make your slippers look like they're made of glass."

"Why haven't I heard about this before?" Daring asked. "Surly such skills would be the most sought after in the entire school."

"They're _fairytale_ witches Daring." Darling pointed out. "You know just as well as we do how there is a stigma about maidens and heroes being in possession of something made by a fairytale witch amongst the Royals."

"Yeah… well there shouldn't be." Daring said darkly. "Especially for Raven, because the original Evil Queen wasn't horrible or evil at all."

"Are you finally going to explain what has you so spooked from your little adventure yesterday?" Dexter asked while Darling turned to her older brother with wide eyes.

Daring pulled his plastic stool over so that he could sit between his siblings.

"Listen… there is… something you guys should know about… the Prince Charming of Snow White's tale." Daring said, sounding serious and sad, he seemed to deflate slightly, looking smaller somehow in his boxers and undershirt.

XXX

Raven peered down at her arms, the intricate designs of the henna paste traveling from just past the backs of her wrists, all the way around her lower arms, up the outer side of her upper arms, and stopping at her shoulder blades. She felt the dried paste crack and pull at her skin every time she moved.

"Nervous?" Faybelle asked holding out her decorated hands for the witch to see. The two of them were standing outside on the Thorn's castle's back lawn/private forest area where the temples were located as they waited for the priests to get things ready in the holy chambers. Over half the Thorn family was either there on the lawn or watching curiously from the sky or trees.

"A little." Raven admitted as she felt many eyes pass over her. "But mostly I'm relieved that this is starting."

"You love your people very much." Faybelle observed. "And you must love Apple as well to be going through all of this."

"I do." Raven sniffled, breathing deeply to get her emotions under control. "It's all for the best, a far better solution than what we had before. Prettier too." The witch giggled airily, looking herself over again. "I'm actually wearing pink and white! And it looks good!" She exclaimed softly looking at the her silver embroidered pink and white sari, matching veil, and the embroidered white band around her bust in awe, the way her skirt had been wrapped around her gave off the illusion of her wearing a decorative white skirt with a fat sheer pink sash draped across her left shoulder, the silver embroidery depicting sprigs of flourishing herbs, matching all the silver jewelry the witch had on.

We do look good." Faybelle admitted looking down at her embroidered green dress jacket and dark blue skintight leggings, both had similar designs to Raven's dress only with gold embroidery, and gold jewelry. "You should try wearing red and other colors of lipstick more often." The fairy said, capturing the witch's chin with her finger. "You look downright maidenly with brighter colors on."

"I'll give it a try." Raven huffed amused.

"My widdle witchling is getting married." A male voice warbled in the background before he yelped in pain when the person next to him smacked him on the back of the head.

"It's a token marriage you oaf. Gods I can't believe that I have such an emotional son, it's not like it's a regular marriage you big baby." Lady Good King snapped at her son causing the people in the surrounding area to turn their attention to them.

"But she's an adult now… my little princess is an adult and she's already doing grown up things… she's leaving me behind!" The Good King dissolved into tears not caring who was watching him.

"This is just a guess but… the Good King is more than just your temporary guardian isn't he." Faybelle said, her eyes widening as the man's mother cursed colorfully and started hitting her son over the head some more.

"Well… by the way your aunt had just made a comment about over emotional fathers to your mother I'm guessing the bat's out of the cave… he's… my biological father actually." Raven coughed half proud of the fact half embarrassed by the scene he was currently making. "I gotta go console him before gran-gran clocks his lights out. I'll see you at the alter!" Raven said over her shoulder as she rushed to the man's side. "Papa calm down! I'm not leaving you! Please stop crying!"

"She's kinda cute. You were right, she is very maiden like." Charlotte spoke as she came up beside her cousin.

"I thought that you weren't coming 'til tomorrow." Faybelle briefly turned to Charlotte with a pleased smile before turning back to watch Raven try to console her blubbering father while at the same time attempting to protect the man from his irritated mother. Maddie, Kitty, the Mad Hatter (who had come with the Good King's party), and even the Cheshire Cat (who had somehow smuggled herself out of Wonderland to attend as a surprise guest) all stood close by and watched the witch and her family fondly (in the Cheshires's case it was more morbid interest at the way Lady Good King was cursing and smacking her son but it was in a fond sort of way).

Charlotte smiled mysteriously. "I got special permission to leave for the weekend early, I had a special package that I needed to deliver and I was charged to personally make sure she was able to find her way here alright."

"You mean-?" Faybelle asked as her eyes widened but before she could finish a cloaked figure in a wheelchair wheeled themselves closer to the witch and her family before pulling down the hood of their cloak.

"Grandmother!" Raven gasped her attention turning to the woman who looked a lot like her, the same woman she hadn't seen in years.

"I'm cured little one." Elenore Queen smiled up at her granddaughter. "The curse is gone, I can touch you now."

With a joyful cry Raven threw her arms around the older woman and clung to her tightly, the elder witch seemed to revel in the ability to touch her granddaughter without pain.

Faybelle cautiously looked over to her mother, the Evil Fairy catching her eyes and allowing for a small smile towards her daughter, telling Faybelle that she was allowed to smile at this small act of good.


	17. Chapter 17

The holy chamber was situated on top of one of the smaller spires carved out to become a temple used more multi purpose uses for a variety of the more common religions in the area, the outer stone walls were practically packed every foot with statues and reliefs of ornate religious scenes, the black rock itself was polished to a shine broken up by potted plants of both decorative floral arrangements and useful herbs that could be accessed through the tall windows.

"Ready?" Faybelle asked as the priest (who was also Faybelle's uncle) tied their hands together.

"As I'll ever be." Raven breathed as they were helped down to their knees.

A magic circle erupted around the two kneeling girls as the priest began chanting, levitating a special cup with two mouths on it for both Raven and Faybelle to take a sip out of.

As the chanting continued and the priest's gentle fingers placed a streak of moist red paste from Raven's forehead to the part of her hair that was accessibly peeking out from under her veil, Raven felt… something shifting deep inside of her, like one small part of her was being lifted up and given away and from the place where that small part used to be… a bigger, warmer feeling started to well up as if newly awakened.

XXX

Milton squinted at the permission slip paperwork he had found on his desk that morning, almost cheerily proclaiming that Raven Queen was to be getting a piercing and some form of permanent skin decoration for religious reasons.

Now _officially_ the permission slips were _supposed_ to be designed so that parental guardians had to wait for _his_ approval/disapproval of any bodily piercings, tattoos, flesh sacrifices, etc., etc., to be adorned on one of his students.

However in his many years as Headmaster he had discovered that when the reasons for getting one of his student's a tattoo were based on religious reasons, and _especially_ if that student was a witch or fairy… nobody cared about his input and if he made a fuss they'd just laugh at him and call him a silly human with no concept of culture.

In these instances the permission slips were more of a polite early warning that he'd get, telling him that come Monday that particular mentioned student would be coming back with a horn through the nose or tribal tattoos all over their face.

Normally this wouldn't bother him nearly as much because he ran a school with students who had come from a vast variety of cultures and he had learned long ago that if he wanted any semblance of respect from these people he had best shut up and pretend that he was the wise neutral party he was supposed to be.

But not all of those students were his newly discovered _granddaughter_!

Milton turned the paper over in the vain hope that there was more information written on the back because in the box provided to describe what cultural bodily expression was going to be used it just said; _a nose piercing and as long as she wears long sleeves, gloves, covers her neck, and does not show the skin on her legs it shouldn't be obvious until the last part of the ritual is completed and_ _the last_ _of the required skin is all done up. But the rituals take a while to complete so the rest of the students should be able to get used to it by then._

With a sinking feeling Milton started to realize that they were planning on covering her whole body in… _something_ permanent…

A hidden part of him, a latent paternal instinct he guessed… an instinct that he never knew he had even _possessed,_ just… _itched_ irritably at the thought of his granddaughter…

A granddaughter whose life he had no say in, whose mother he had terrorized as a girl driving her to try to conquer the worlds and was currently locked up in a mirror in his study, and whose grandmother he had taken pains to cut out of his life because she wasn't a human noble who could bring up his status and give him a title only worth just a little bit amongst a few of the human kingdoms in Ever After.

Before Milton could really start feeling sorry for himself (for the third dozen time that week) he felt… no, _sensed_ a slight change in… something… it was very faint he couldn't quite-

Suddenly that faint _thing_ he was sensing flared up a hundred fold nearly knocking him out of his chair as he _felt_ not only the presence of the Book of Legends but also three strong connections the Book had to it's servants and to Milton's surprise there was already a fourth, weaker one clicking further into place, but it became far stronger than the others and far more integrated into the connection-

Milton fell against his desk when the phenomena suddenly stopped.

XXX

Giles sat up slowly on the school's lawn (he had wanted to be outside for a while before he went looking for his brother); he had fallen when he was suddenly hit with the familiar often-overwhelming sensation of a new servant being crowned by the Book.

Giles tilted his head to the side as he contemplated the two strangest things he had noticed while the Book's power had flared up, the first one being that… it seemed to feel like a fourth, previously unknown, servant of the Book, who must have previously had a weak connection, had just been granted a far more powerful bond…

And the second strange thing was the third servant's connection, Giles had always had the rare ability to be able to tell the difference between the different servant's connections, each had their own very distinct feeling to them as unique as the individual connected to the Book.

And while Giles knew that there _should_ be a third connection to the Book from the young man, Kline, he and his brother had initiated in years ago… there was something off… Kline's connection to the Book was… very weak when he was first initiated in; it wasn't until much later when both he and Milton felt a connection form. Kline must have been very far away because Giles had difficulties feeling the difference between Kline's specific connection and his and Milton's (if the fourth had been connected back then it was too weak for him to feel)… but then again at the time he had been stuck in bed with a terrible flu and that was about the same time the Evil Queen started acting… well evil…

But Giles was perfectly healthy now, and perfectly able to sense that third connection was _not_ Kline, the man's initial connection may have been weak but at least Giles could sense enough of it to know that the current third connection was not Kline's.

Which brought Giles back to the first odd thing because the new fourth connection felt similar to the connection that Giles had sensed the day Kline had been initiated… but it had changed slightly, it was… different somehow… it could very well not be Kline at all.

But if the third servant wasn't Kline then who could it be…? And who was this new powerful servant if it turned out not to be Kline either?

XXX

Clawstorm jolted violently as she sat upright in her mirror prison, struggling with the full skirts of her Evil Queen dress and all the little decorative bits meant to make her look as scary as possible.

She cursed herself once again for putting fashion over function, what she wouldn't _give_ for a pair of _pants_!

"What the fucking hell was that?" Clawstorm cursed. Whatever it was it had felt familiar… just like that time when she had been exhaustedly making a believable replica of the Book of Legends and she needed to connect her replica to the real Book of Legend's memories to mask the scent of the fake, and in order to do that she had to us her own power on the real Book of Legends to make that connection.

Back then she had felt the Book's power flow into her core the moment her magic had touched it (which was disheartening in of itself because she had tried so hard to be carful and not trip any of it's built in defenses), for a moment she had thought that the artifact had killed her but somehow, beyond all reason, she had survived, and she had created a replica so good that it had fooled the Grimm brothers for years (until recently)!

"It's not trying to kill me off _now_ is it?" Clawstorm grumbled, she hoped not, she still had a lot of messes that needed to be cleaned up and a daughter to protect from that Kline-bastard.

She could not afford to be beaten or to take ill so suddenly, Clawstorm couldn't put her finger on it, but her intuition told her that soon, very soon, she would have to break out of here and assume the mask of the Evil Queen once again.

Which was ironic considering she had not signed her birth name in that blasted Book so that she could legally bail out on her duties to that moronic current Snow White and live a peaceful life as an enchantress or something in the freaking woods (she had planned to hide in that whiny princess's own kingdom because who would think to look for Clawstorm in her enemy's homeland?) where no one could find her.

But since when was life ever kind enough to her to let even that simple pipe dream come true?

XXX

Raven blinked as the nearly overwhelming feeling of… something passed.

 _"You ok?"_ Faybelle mouthed as her uncle continued to chant above them.

 _"Yes."_ Raven assured, because what she had felt just then wasn't a bad feeling at all… it was like being hugged by a loved one… and sunshine.

XXX

"Apple didn't feel up to coming to the game huh?" Briar asked Ashlynn as the princess sat down beside her in the bleachers. Ashlynn was wearing a pair of sunglasses and a shawl to hide her bandaged shoulder and black eye.

"Suffice to say that Apple wanted some time alone to quietly freak out in the privacy of her room." Ashlynn prodded her sore, bandaged shoulder gingerly. "And Hunter's worried about Raven's welfare and whether her living with Apple is a good idea or not." The princess sighed. "It's not the first time he or some other Rebels have worried about that but… this time he seemed half ready to break into the RA records and assign her to a new room, I had just spent the past fifteen minutes before he had to leave to get ready for the game trying to convince him not to be so hasty, I managed to talk him down from calling Sparrow and his band to help him. By the way, if things head south between Apple and Raven on Monday when Raven get's back we're going to have a new roommate."

"Why?" Briar asked confused.

"It was the only compromise that Hunter would agree to; if Apple isn't treating Raven right in the wake of he emotional freak out, us, being Apple's closest friends, have to help get Raven out of there." Ashlynn sighed again.

"That sounds pretty serious." Briar observed her brows flirting with her hairline. "Does he really distrust Apple that much?"

"Well… he's still kind of sore about the whole true hearts dance incident… and the fact that Apple refuses to call him by his name…" Ashlynn winced. "Along with several other instances that has given him some… measure of caution when it comes to trusting that Apple won't end up hurting Raven… he has always been protective of his friends and he's really worried about Raven, who has always been super supportive of us… and the whole thing about Apple giving me a black eye… that really set him off." Ashlynn gestured to her face.

"I think that a lot of that also has to do with the fact that Apple's disapproval of your life choices has hurt you in the past." Briar said while looking at Ashlynn pointedly. "Don't deny it, if I could tell that you were hurt by Apple's words towards you then your loving boyfriend would have no problems seeing it too."

Ashlynn looked down. "Should we be worried too?" she asked. "I know that it's a terrible thing to say but… sometimes… it hurts to see the two of them ya know? I mean that it has always been obvious that Raven cares a great deal about Apple, and has done everything in her power while not succumbing to the Evil Queen role to not hurt Apple any more than she has already been with the whole Legacy Day thing but… but…"

"But Apple's inability to even try to see things from other's point of view really bugs you doesn't it?" Briar finished in a grumble. "Yeah, well I'm starting to agree with him. It hurts when you've got a destiny that will uproot everything you care about, never mind the fact that we've all been lied to in order for us to follow that destiny, but to have somebody constantly there to nag you about becoming the thing that you hate just because she don't want to believe that there is any alternatives in life… telling you to "not worry about it" and giving you more lies about how "you don't know how the future is going to be like" and that there "might be a chance" the keyword there being "might" since she don't really care about thinking past her own happy ending to consider anybody else or how much it hurts to hear her saying that we don't have to follow our parent's exact footsteps but then turn around and reprimand everybody for not following the script… it hurts! And some of us are tired of pretending that we're excited about our destinies that end badly or ask us to give up everything! It's like she has no concept of what's really going on in the world and when she is given the cold hard truth, instead of acting like a normal person and trying to figure out what actions they're supposed to take next and talking it out with the one person that loves her despite her constant whining, she goes and has a mental break trying to chase Raven down because the witch can't tell her whatever secret business her family is doing and when we try to talk some sense in her she kicks me in the face and she actually manages to bite you!"

"You done?" Ashlynn asks lifting up her glasses and watching as Briar breathes heavily after her little rant. "Is it just me or were you talking about yourself as well as Raven?"

Briar bites her lip as she looks away.

"My advice… stop holding yourself back, I know that you don't want to become Sleeping Beauty, and I know that you want to be official with Cerise." Ashlynn pointed her chin towards the field where the teams still had a few minutes before they had to come out and face off. "We won't disappear if we don't follow our stories, you can forge your own life, the first chance you get you should take your chance with her, whether it works out or not doesn't matter, what matters is that you do what you want to do and if that involves making Cerise your special non-platonic girlfriend then go for it."

Briar turned to Ashlynn in surprise, her wide eyes meeting Ashlynn's one good non-swollen-shut eye.

"I want to…" Briar swallowed. "I want to be with her, and I'm pretty sure she wants to be with me, but the future… it had always been so…"

"It doesn't have to be automatically uncertain or unfair anymore." Ashlynn said with a determined smile. "The fairytales are lies, we don't have to follow them anymore, we can be free of them if we want to be there is nothing holding us back from just walking away! You can be with her Briar. You can start your life on your own terms now."

"I can be with her…" Briar whispered almost afraid to believe it. "I don't have to give up everything and be put to sleep for a hundred years… I'm allowed to live my life and love whomever I want!" She laughed tears springing to her eyes.

"And who knows…" Ashlynn mused. "Maybe Apple will come around now that she knows that her perfect ending isn't so perfect anymore."

"Apple can do whatever she wants." Briar shook her head. "The only thing that I'm concerned about now is watching my girl win this bookball match and then taking her to the dance on a proper date!"

XXX

"…And Cerise Hood bites the giant's hand forcing Green Stalk to release her, and she's running, she's running, GOAL! Cerise Hood wins Ever After High their first bookball win of the season! And the crowed goes wild!" Apple's radio alarm clock announces.

Apple takes a deep breath as she snuggles further under the covers; Nevermore cooing lyrically as she flicks her tiny forked tongue at Apple's face consolingly.

"I envy you Nevermore." Apple pouted at Raven's chief familiar who was laying her tiny serpent-like body on top of Apple's covered chest. "You don't have to deal with everybody in your life lying to you or confusing feelings towards your supposed enemy, all you have to do is sit up cutely and purr when people can't resist petting you. You know exactly who you are, you know enough about yourself to be whom you truly are inside, and you are free to love anybody who feeds you. Would you mind switching places with me? Maybe?"

Nevermore tilted her head to the side inquisitively.

"I guessed not." Apple sighed, feeling the weight of everything in the past forty-eight hours or so press down on her uncomfortably. "Thanks anyway."

XXX

"She didn't say anything." Raven realized as she paused mid-buttoning up the new lightweight nightgown that she had found in the place of where her t-shirts and shorts used to be in her closet, she would rescue her old clothes when she came back, Apple always put them in the clothes donation bin in the dorm laundry and the very kind head maid (who was one of Raven's under the table clients, the witch made a special ointment to ease the pain of her arthritis), always fished the clothes out of the pile and set them aside for Raven to pick back up.

"Who didn't say anything?" Faybelle yawned (jet lag was always a drag, which was why the Evil Fairy had sent them to bed soon after the first ritual was completed and Raven had a little bit more time to talk to her family) as she came up to the witch and batted Raven's hands away in order to unbutton the nightgown the witch was wearing. "And why did you pack this thing? It's way too hot to sleep with all that fabric on."

"Apple has declared war on all of my old leisure and non-formal clothes." Raven suppressed a snicker. "She has yet to successfully banish them from my closet, no matter how many times she throws them out."

"Hoy vey, I'm inheriting a troublemaker princess." Faybelle sighed in over the top mock-despair. "It's a good thing I'm a badass or else I'd actually be worried about her going through my clothes and dictating what I wear."

Raven rolled her eyes. "It's become a little game we play- well… more like a way for me to poke fun at her need to have everything in her life under control. And are you planning on just wearing your underwear to bed?" The witch eyed the fairy's dark blue bra and panty ensemble with suspicion.

"Seeing as how you will be accompanying me alone into my bed you're lucky I'm not going in naked." Faybelle told her seriously, Maddie and Kitty and all the other guests were given rooms of their own but Faybelle had grabbed Raven, before Moss could escort the witch to a separate room, and had pointedly whisked the witch away. "Though I hold no promises for keeping even these clothes on if I get warm in my sleep."

Raven hesitated. "As long as I'm not the only one…" The witch shrugged off the gown with a grateful sigh as slight wisps of cool air was able to meet her skin. "I may have been raised by humans but I'm not a complete prude." Raven told the fairy reproachfully as she stood unashamed in her white panties, the band she had worn across her chest for her wedding dress didn't exactly allow for a bra so she had two skin tone-colored pasties over her nipples.

"After meeting that family of yours it's pretty fair to say that I won't be categorizing you under the same level of prudishness as that blonde princess." Faybelle snorted because from what Faybelle had been able to glean off of the witch's family (which had been a lot because Lady Good King didn't seemed to get ashamed about _anything_ ) was that they were all lovably insane in their own right and very little seemed to phase them.

"Tell me who didn't say anything and what was it all about." Faybelle ordered gently.

"Apple… I just realized that I had forgotten to take a shawl with me when I snuck into our dorm… she had been awake and she turned on the lights and hugged me but… she never pointed out my scars." Raven furrowed her brows in confusion.

"Well the cloth covering your exposed mid-section wasn't _that_ see-through, she could have missed it?" Faybelle offered.

Raven shook her head. "Apple is like a hawk when it comes to spying things like that, not in an OCD way like Blondie, but in a… highly intelligent sort of way… you get what I'm talking about?"

"Yes I do." Faybelle hummed thinking of how Apple was one of the smartest people at school. "But she is also very selective with the things she sees and the things she lets herself understand, you know with the way she's willing to like say… propose with the village council to install an animal crossing sign across a road for a mother duck who was too stubborn to stick to the usual animal trails and was willing to risk her young in the face of oncoming traffic in comparison to… pretty much all of her interactions with your Rebel faction and her inability to understand why people like you would want either a new destiny or no destiny at all."

"What are you saying?" Raven peered at Faybelle curiously.

Faybelle took the witch by the shoulders. "She's your roommate Raven, even if you have been super careful she has to have seen your scars before, but because it doesn't coincide to this perfect mental image she has about how you're supposed to be… she refuses to acknowledge it. Knowing her she's probably rationalized it all away into some strange little theory that fit's her inner narrative and has chosen not to ask you about it incase the truth varies widely to what she'd like to believe is the truth. C'mon it's not like she's never done that before."

Raven put her finger to her lips as she thought about that. Thinking back to the beginning of the year when Apple had cheerfully ignored all the terrible things the other students had been saying about the witch to the princess's face, how she didn't even try to defend Raven from the obvious slanderous talk and then went ahead and used her influence to reassign Raven's room assignment so that Raven had to become Apple's roommate… all the Evil Queen regalia the princess had bought just assuming that Raven would fit into the role that Apple had of her in her head…

Raven sighed pinching the bridge of her nose. "Yeah… Maddie and Kitty have pointed that character flaw out to me the other day… They've suggested that I try to distance myself from that instead of encouraging it by just trying to argue."

"I've overheard several others in your Rebel faction have expressed similar sentiments." Faybelle informed. "Lots of them actually, they're worried about you having to live in the same dorm with that treatment."

"It's not as bad as it used to be… I enjoy her company the most when she isn't talking about destiny." Raven looked down closing her eyes and breathed out her nose. "If only I could tell for sure that… she at least cares about me… for me… and not my bloodline."

"You're about to find out." Faybelle whispered coming closer, gently leaning her head on Raven's. "The question is; will you be able to ask her the difficult questions that need to be said to her face and will she turn out to be the kind of princess that truly has all the good qualities that you fell in love with, or will her real self shine through and every thing you one thought you knew about her turn out to be just as big of a lie as her story."

"You really know how to hit it over the head." Raven swallowed thickly.

"I'm fae, it's kind of our job to be all blunt and insightful and crap." Faybelle smirked.

The two looked up when Raven's phone chimed from her bag.

"Wow… that a lot of people asking about what happened in the girl's dorms this morning…" Raven's eyes widened at all of her friends and some people she didn't know who even had her number had sent her hexts that… all looked like they were asking about what she knew about Apple's psychotic break and if the witch was all right.

Faybelle rested her chin on Raven's shoulder, hugging the witch around the waist as she peered at the hexts. "Looks like the Rebels are worried that their fearless leader has finally been chased away by that hot mess of a Royal princess- wait. Go back up a bit…" Faybelle read over a certain hext and hissed hatefully, putting her hands on Raven's hips possessively. "Lizzie Hearts… that little…"

"You know…" Raven began as she stared at Lizzie's (only half serious and mostly joking) offer to take Raven as her harem wife. "If I hadn't already made this deal with you I'd probably be seriously considering that right about now."

"I know." Faybelle growled giving Raven's hips a squeeze. "And she would have taken all the benefits of marrying you with her if she had gotten to you first… Trying to take away _my_ ally, the _nerve_ …."

"This means that you're going to integrate yourself even further into my life so that she get's the hint that I'm yours… isn't it." Raven guessed with a resigned sigh.

Faybelle batted her eyes innocently. "Actually I was thinking about having you wear a sign-"

"Not gonna happen." Raven cut her off. "Do you seriously want to tip Apple or anyone else off about this before we're ready for it?"

"I can find a subtle way for you to wear something that both screams that you are mine and not to be poached, and it be completely subtle at the same time." Faybelle sniffed, it's what fairies are good at.

"Oh really?" Raven said skeptically. "And what might that be?"

Faybelle smiled wickedly. "Well you did say that all those Evil Queen dresses aren't your style…"

XXX

Milton sighed as he stared at his suspicious smelling cup of punch that Professor Baba Yaga had put into his hand as he had came through the Gym doors for his required presence at the thronecoming dance, he had no plans of drinking it, he had seen the woman give some to Professor Rumplestiltskin and had seen the old coot run for the bathrooms right after one sip, obviously the crone was either up to her old tricks again or she was protesting the fact that someone had thought that it would be a good idea of giving a _villain_ the job of guarding the snacks table… or both, honestly Milton wouldn't put it past her to have put someone's dirty sock into the bowl when she had thought no one was looking.

So here he was in the well lit curtained off area filled with vanity desks and mirrors for the students to use to freshen up, sitting glumly down on the spiral staircase that led up to the second story bleachers, holding a cup of fowl punch, and contemplating about his life choices and how it had all led him to this moment in time where he was sitting down all by himself, no one he could call a friend or lover to cheer him up, and having nothing better to do other than counting all of the regrets in his life.

"You look glum brother." A voice spoke from behind; a voice that Milton hadn't heard in years startled him out of his thoughts.

The head master whipped his head around to see Giles standing several steps above him on the stairs. "Giles?" Milton gaped eyes as wide as saucers. "How…? Why?"

"A little bird and her hatter friend told me that you needed help. So I came out to both help you… and forgive you." Giles told Milton in a kind tone reaching into his vest pocket and handing Milton a photograph of the two of them when they were young before sitting down next to Milton on the stairs.

"Oh Giles…" Milton covered his mouth as tears welled in his eyes. "I am so sorry… I missed you so much, and I should never have-"

"I'm here now brother." Giles rested a hand on Milton's shoulder. "And we both know that I could have walked out of the archives years ago if I wanted to. Why don't you tell me what troubles have been going on that has got both Raven and Madeline so worried?"

Milton sniffed, handing back the photograph and giving Giles a hug. "This is going to take some time." Milton sighed into Giles's shoulder. "And I'm exhausted, do you mind if we talk about it back in the office?"

Giles smiled understandingly. "Let's get going."


	18. Chapter 18

Cerise perked up when she saw the hext that she had gotten from Briar, the hooded girl felt relief flood her at the words stating that the princess was finally on her way to the dance and that she wanted to offer Cerise a dance, which was great because Cerise felt downright awkward just standing in the corner like she was currently doing.

"Hey Cerise!" Daring called, an unusual awkward tone in his voice as he approached. "So… do you want a dance?"

"Sorry Daring." Cerise smirked as she held up her phone. "Someone already asked me first." She informed as she walked past him and waved to all the surprised maidens who had been glaring daggers at her two seconds ago. "He's all yours ladies, enjoy the night while it's young because if you don't grab him now… well, it'll be a while before the next school dance..."

Cerise grinned when the maiden's erupted into one big thankful squeal and all but mobbed the surprised Charming prince, Daring's arms waving above the mass of bodies surrounding him was the last thing she saw before she zipped out of the gym and into the hallway.

"Hey beautiful." Cerise bumped shoulders with Briar as she caught up with the princess walking down the empty hallway to the gym.

"Hey yourself." Briar smiled warmly at the hooded girl as she took Cerise's hand in her own. "I'm sorry it took me longer then expected to get here I had some… princess problems that I needed to literally hand feed dinner she was so uncooperative."

"Is Apple going to be all right?" Cerise asked worried.

Briar snorted. "She'll live, if she can stop chattering on and on about how everybody lied to her about her fairytale and how in love with Raven she is, long enough to remember to eat."

"…Is that a polite way to say that she's talking to herself?" Cerise asked.

"Talking to herself, talking to Raven's pet dragon, pacing the room, flopping down on Raven's bed and hugging the pillows… if it were any other person I'd be worried but since it's Apple I'm actually relieved that she's addressing these issues to herself. So while she sorts out her life I can enjoy a night of dancing with you."

Cerise opened the gym doors with a wide smile. "Sounds good to me." She said as they walked inside.

XXX

"Hey Briar…" Cerise said, her eye catching onto something off to the side when a new song started.

"Hmm? Oh!" Briar's eyes widened when she spied the projected image on the wall behind the temporary stage where old photographs of former students going about their daily lives, when they attended the school as teenagers, were being shown. "Is that your mom? Hey, that's my and Ashlynn's dorm!"

"Yes, but look behind my mother." Cerise pointed out the hooded girl sitting on the floor behind Little Red Riding Hood. "I remember her telling me that her roommate used to be the Evil Queen…"

Briar squinted at the Evil Queen; in the photograph she was holding up the decorative rug for some reason and on the floor was… something. A faint outline of some sort… "What is she…?" Briar's eyes widened in realization as something Apple had rambled on about earlier that night caught her attention.

"Hey Cerise do you mind coming with me in order to check something out?" Briar asked already tugging the other girl to the door.

XXX

"Ok, so I care for Raven more than most people… and maybe it's in a romantic way… or it could just very well be some sort of hero worship, like how some little kids at those fund raisers said that they wanted to marry me because they looked up to me…" Apple rambled as she paced the room.

Nevermore cooed and wagged the tip of her tail from her position on Apple's desk, a bowl of half eaten treats had been placed there for the dragon to munch on.

"…I guess you're right Nevermore, I'm not a little kid, and hero worship does not explain why I keep trying to get Raven to act a certain way, because if it was hero worship I'd be admiring Raven for her Rebel cause and want to become a Rebel too."

Apple shook her head as if to clear it, picking up Raven's pillow from her bed and hugging it for a while as she thought on that particular line of inquiry.

"Why do I want Raven to become that particular way? I had always thought that villains were supposed to be devious, and cold, and would want to poison their designated maidens. I mean mom told me-"

Apple paused, a sour expression crossing her features. "Mom told me to expect that from Raven, mom told me that I should not get hurt feelings if Raven acted that way just because I was Snow White's daughter… just because I was _her_ daughter." The princess's expression darkened. "But mom used to bully the Evil Queen… mom told me that the Evil Queen used to be cold towards her and would poison her occasionally… mom said that whenever the Evil Queen poisoned her the spells that she'd use would give her nice dreams about a happily ever after and that I should probably expect to deal with the same things from Raven because mom was the Evil Queen's enemy."

Apple turned to Nevermore her brows furrowed. "None of that had anything to do with their perspective roles did it Nevermore. Mom was just warning me without telling me the whole truth that Raven might hate me because of what my mom did to her mom, my mom used to bully the Evil Queen, probably to the point where the Evil Queen had to poison her just to get mom away from her for a while… and Raven said that all evil villains have an honor code that they abide by when it comes to their counterparts, that it is their responsibility to take care of their counterparts…"

Apple looked down as her mind continued to piece together the clues. "Mom was given good dreams when she had been poisoned, the Evil Queen was abiding by the honor code and taking care of her princess even though mom was so mean to her… a-and then mom told me all these things that I should expect from a villain but when Raven never acted that way towards me I thought that there was something wrong and I…"

"But that was a lie!" Apple exclaimed. "Everything that they ever told me was a lie and… what if my story is a lie too?" Apple realized. "Daring… Daring said that the original Evil Queen was a good person and that someone else was the bad person… and something about kissing dead people… what if the real bad guy in the story was Snow White? … Or someone else… he did say that the Evil Queen was just trying to protect her stepdaughter, and as far as I know the Evil Queen only had one child she looked after and that was Snow White…"

"Why did I want Raven to poison me so badly?" Apple rubbed her forehead. "Now that I know that isn't how a villain is supposed to normally treat their princesses… _oh_ … _no_ …" Apple covered her face feeling completely mortified. "That was why Raven kept looking at me like I was crazy and tried to get me to see a school mind healer. She probably thought that I had lost my mind! She probably thinks that I'm some sort of crazy person who likes it when people…"

Apple put both hands on her head, dropping the pillow in the process, as she tried to think about what Raven must think of her. "Now that I think about it, I don't really understand why I was so obsessed with her acting like that towards me… I mean I wouldn't have liked it if anybody _else_ acted like that so…"

With an exasperated sigh Apple snatched up Raven's pillow and fell backwards on to her bed. "Ok. Let's take the fairytale out of it. Try to imagine what that would be like without the fairytale…" Apple told herself as she imagined an evil version of Raven telling her that she was pretty, that she should take a bite of an apple so that Raven could have Apple forever and ever, and as Apple lays down asleep on a soft bed with Raven over her the witch would lean down and-"

"Kyaaa!" Apple jolts up causing Nevermore to hide inside Apple's school bag. "I wanted Raven to kiss me? B-but what about Daring isn't he supposed to do that? …Have I ever thought about anything past Raven poisoning me since I've made her my roommate?"

Apple scoured her brain for a moment in time where she had ever considered what her happy ending would entail after the poisoning, she had always had a vague idea in mind but she had never really put much thought into it because it did not involve Raven.

"I never really thought about it at all." Apple said bemused and guilty. "Raven being near me was the only thing I cared about… I kind of feel like I should apologize to Daring for not even considering what our married lives would be like…"

Apple stood up and wandered to Raven's side of the short entrance hallway where photographs of the witch and her friends hung, one of them being a photograph of Raven standing beside Apple, something that Blondie had taken for a post on her blog about the Royal vs. Rebel conflict.

Apple stared at the photograph for a long while, her eyes roaming over Raven's image with keen intensity.

Nevermore cautiously crawled across the floor and pawed Apple's leg, making concerned humming sounds as she did so.

Apple sat down on the ground with a heavy sigh, collecting the tiny dragon in her arms as she did so.

"Nevermore… I think… I'm in love with your mistress." Apple breathed, her eyes fixed to Raven's photograph.

"And I have no clue what I'm supposed to do from here."

XXX

Cerise helped Briar feel around the floor under the rug in the center of the room.

"So what are we looking for exact-" The hooded girl was interrupted by a mechanical click when her hand pressed squarely on a hidden panel a small patch of floor lit up at the warm touch of her hand before dissolving, revealing a hidden compartment.

"What the?" Cerise blinked in surprise.

"Apple had mumbled something about our predecessors installing hidden compartments in the dorm rooms while she was freaking out about her mom." Briar explained as she retrieved an object wrapped in canvas with spells painted onto it from the depths of the compartment.

"That sounds awfully suspicious…" Cerise trailed off as she took out an envelope that had been lying under the wrapped object.

"Royalty like keeping their secrets…" Briar trailed off as she removed the canvas wrapping off of the Book of Legends.

"Uh… Cerise?" Briar swallowed as she held up the Book for the hooded girl to see.

Cerise's eyes widened. "Holy shit…" She trailed off. "That's… that's the real thing?"

Briar flipped the Book over and set it in her lap, immediately a glowing key materialized in front of the princess.

"I'd say that there is a definite possibility that all signs point to yes." Briar said, her face morphing into focused determination when she took the key and unlocked the Book.

"Briar?" Cerise asked frightened when the Book opened up and flipped itself to Sleeping Beauty's page.

"It's all right Cerise." Briar assured serenely, lifting her page with deft fingers. "It's about time that I take charge of my own life."

With a growl the princess crumpled the page in her fist. "I am not going to sleep my life away and marry some stranger for the sake of a lie!" She roared and ripped the paper out savagely.

"Ah!" Cerise gasped reaching for Briar as the page glowed a warm gold color and seeped into Briar's skin.

Briar felt strong arms envelope her. "Is that… are you okay?" Cerise said after she a moment to calm down from her blind panic.

"Yeah…" Briar panted, the surge of adrenaline making her heart want to beat out of her chest. "Still here. Still existing. And feeling super happy."

The princess began giggling. "I'm free Cerise!" Briar held up the Book to make double sure that the page was gone. "Without a page they can't make me sign anything! I'm free!"

Cerise began laughing too, hugging Briar's shoulders as she shook with mirth. "My turn next, I'm damn sick of the thought that those damn maiden classes I'm being forced to take would have to actually become useful to me if I ever had to sign this damn thing!"

"Alright, alright, let me find you." Briar gulped down air as she tried to calm herself while turning the pages, uncaring if she tore a few a little bit in the process. "Oh look, there's Ashlynn's page!"

"Would she be mad if we-?" Cerise asked.

"I hardly doubt it. And I'm her friend so…" Briar tore out Ashlynn's page, the paper turning into a ball of golden light and flying out the open window.

"There's Maddie's page!" Cerise exclaimed as she tore out a page.

"Ginger's page!" Briar tossed the torn glowing paper to the side.

"Cedar's!" Cerise grinned tossing that one over her shoulder.

"There goes Hunter's!" Briar laughed.

"You are welcome cousin Sparrow." Cerise smirked as she watched that one go.

"Good luck Tiny, you big old sweetheart you." Briar giggled.

"Kick some ass Darling!" Cerise waved as another page flew out the window.

"Oh here you are…" Briar paused when she read over Cerise's page. "That's weird… how can you be both Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf? How would that even work?"

XXX

"I'm not the only one feeling that am I?" Giles asked clutching his chest, as he looked around spooked.

"No." The Headmaster said gravely, tensing considerably in his chair. "It's the Book… can you sense out where it is?"

Giles put his fingers to his temples. "No… It feels like it's all over the place… I- I can't pinpoint it!"

"What is going on?" Milton Demanded getting up from his seat and pacing, his skin felt like there were tiny insects made up of electricity crawling under it. Every time he blinked he could see words racing across the inside of his eyes.

"Brother… do you feel that presence coming from your chambers?" Giles asked suddenly.

"I feel a lot of things right now." The Headmaster snapped.

"Look closer at the feeling coming from a few rooms away from us." Giles ordered already moving toward the adjoining rooms.

Milton paused and did as his brother instructed, with all the fairytale magic in the air he could sense himself and his own connection to the Book from deep within, he could feel Giles's connection practically right next to him and a little further away...

"What in the kingdom…?" Milton said as he raced after his brother and to the third mysterious servant that they could sense.

The two Grimm brother's paused right outside the door that led to the study, the same room with the mirror where the Evil Queen was imprisoned, they turned to look at each other with wide eyes at the sound of the woman within cursing heartily inside. It sounded like she was being attacked with the way she was making so much noise.

"What's going on?" Milton demanded as he burst in, scouring the room worriedly for any possible attackers.

"Make it stop damn you!" The Evil Queen roared from her mirror. "Damn it old man if you wanted to kill me off at least do it quickly!" The woman hissed her magic flared out around her like an aura, little golden sparks of light popping all around it, her eyes were glowing white but Milton could see the shadows of words flying across them when he took a closer look.

"I haven't done anything." Milton promised his eyes wide as he stared at the third servant to the Book of Legends.

"This is far more convincing than a DNA test." Giles murmured his hand covering in mouth in surprise.

"Brother!" Giles turned to Milton. "In order to have made the fake Book and hide the original she must have had to have handled it with her magic!"

"But she's already signed it." Milton shook his head. "Can it be possible that she could be allowed both responsibilities?"

"It's never happened before." Giles pointed out. "There's no way for us to know."

"Pardon me but I'm kind of being electrocuted here!" The Evil Queen growled. "Giles, you were always the sane one, please tell me what's going on!"

Giles shared a look with his brother, Milton sighed putting a hand to his face and looked away while Giles turned to the woman in the mirror. "We believe somebody is currently doing something to the real Book of Legends, we don't know what exactly or where it is, but what we are _all_ sensing right now, _both you and us_ , is the result of our connection to it."

The Evil Queen shook her head not understanding. "Why am I sensing that someone is doing something to that damn thing too? Mom said that only servants to the Book could feel anything that happens to it."

"We might have an explanation for this…" Giles looks at Milton out of the corner of his eye, the larger man tenses but gives a small nod for Giles to continue. "Tell me, while you had the real Book in your possession did you ever… feel it's power rush into you at any given point?"

The woman gives him a reproachful look. "Why do you ask?"

"I believe that while you had the Book at some point it had decided to crown you as one of its servants." Giles tactfully broached the subject.

"So… what you're saying that it's got some sort of connection with me? The same it has with you?" The Evil Queen said disbelievingly. "But that's… impossible! I mean I know that that thing's power can get clingy, like the time that it tried to form the same hold over my daughter as it had done me… but I'm not of Grimm blood, and I have never been initiated into being any servant, I was nowhere near that ceremony that the father to my daughter had taken Raven to-"

"Wait if you please." Giles held up his hand. "What do you mean by it forming a hold over Raven?"

"Miss Queen once told me that a relative of hers was invited to new guy's initiation and had taken her to see new guy get initiated…" Milton said his eyes widening.

"Yeah…" The Evil Queen said suspiciously. "I could sense the Book's magic inside of her as soon as he dropped her off for my turn to have her for the week. It took forever to weaken the hold it had over her to the point where it had at least stopped growing around her magical core and heart, but I was never fully able get it out of her completely…"

"You could sense the Book's magic?" Giles pressed even as Milton covered both hands over his mouth. "How did you know what the Book's power felt like?"

"What kind of ridiculous question is that?" The woman spat. "I've always been able to sense where that thing was, even when I was in my dorm I could tell that it was almost always in the Headmaster's office, aside from all those formal school things you guys only took that thing out to bring down to the library archives every so often. An artifact that powerful I'm surprised that the whole campus didn't wake up when you so much as touched it in the middle of the night!"

Giles and Milton shared another look, because as powerful as the Book of Legend was, as long as it stayed in the domain of the school it could not be detected by anyone save for the servants to it, and even then the ability to tell where the _exact_ location of the Book so easily was an ability that had not been born into the Grimm family for three generations… until now apparently.

"New guy never became a servant…" Milton trailed off his mind dawning in realization. "That weak connection you felt it wasn't new guy's!"

"Enough of these questions!" The Evil Queen snapped glaring at the Headmaster. "My crimes may be enough excuse not to clue me in to your meaningless affairs but if this involves my daughter in any way so help me there isn't a hell that I'd hesitate to raise-"

"She's the fourth servant to the Book of Legends!" Milton cut in shaking slightly from the new information sinking in. "And you are also… you are the third servant to the Book."

"So… are you saying that the Book of Legends will make just about anybody its servant now or something?" The Evil Queen scrunched her face up in confusion.

"No… only those of Grimm blood or an initiate can become a servant." Milton licked his lips nervously. "Both you and your daughter are… of Grimm blood…"

"What?" The Evil Queen said flatly, not looking impressed in the slightest. "Wait… your not drunk again, are you?" She demanded as she squinted at Milton.

"He'll probably want a drink or two after this is over." Giles coughed while scratching the back of his neck awkwardly.

"No, I'm not drunk." Milton nearly growled as he passed a hand over his face. "You see… the thing is… your mother and I… I- we-"

"Spit it out already!" The Evil Queen growled.

"You're my daughter." Milton forced out, his voice raw with emotion. "And Miss Queen… your daughter is my… granddaughter."

The Evil Queen went silent and still as she stared at Milton with wide disbelieving eyes.

A final jolt of words and electricity crawling under the skin broke the woman out of her shock.

"No…" The Evil Queen covered her mouth and nose with both hands, shaking her head as she stepped away. "No! No! No! No! You're _lying_!" She accused pointing to Milton who looked hurt by her reaction. She turned to Giles pleadingly. "Giles, you'd never go along with such a pathetic ruse, tell me he's lying! Please tell me that he's…"

"He's not lying." Giles put his hands up peacefully. "The fact that the Book had created a bond with you without ceremony means that you are indeed a direct descendant of the original Grimm Brothers."

The Evil Queen clutched at her hair and crown. " _That's_ why mom didn't simply charge in and kick his ass way back when? I thought that it was suspicious that she had just wanted to smuggle me out of here back in high school… and _that_ was what that bastard had been wailing about when he kidnapped my daughter, him going on about how the bond hadn't taken and how Raven stole his roll away from him."

"Kidnapped? Raven had been kidnapped?" Giles asked worried. "When? By whom?"

"Not that he'd ever care, since _he's_ the one who picked the guy who tried to declare war on my homeland." The Evil Queen snarled pointing an accusing finger to Milton. "But that Kline-bastard, the one he had picked out to replace you guys, must have somehow noticed that Raven had gotten some sort of bond thingy with that thrice-cursed Book and that was why he had kidnapped her and tried to kill her! All of that rambling he did while I kicked his ass about how he should have been the one to become the servant and not her makes sense now!"

"What?" Milton shook his head, trying to comprehend what the woman was saying.

The Evil Queen snarled again. "Don't act innocent in front of me!" She spat. "I was there! In your office for another round of you badgering me for "being such a disgrace" because I dared ask for your help for you to do something against your precious _maiden brigade_ constantly sniping at me, and I remember you looking over a list of candidates of who would replace you when you finally kicked it, you were mumbling names under your breath and that Kline-bastard's was one of them! Don't think I'd be so naïve to believe that _you_ of all people never carefully considered who that bastard was related to, what group he was suspected of belonging to, and how they were just chomping at the bit to declare a witch hunt on my family and all the witches who live on our lands so that they could clear us out and they could move in!"

Milton's heart seemed to stop for a moment. "No… on that particular occasion I… hadn't been as thorough with my screening as I should have been… I just saw some familiar names and… new guy was just a boy back then, I… used to know his mother, she was a kind soul so I…"

"You never got a good look at who his granduncle was?" The Evil Queen twitched, rage building behind her eyes. "Or were you too busy thinking about giving your old _human_ _fling_ a favor while you cursed the existence of your _non-human daughter_!"

"I didn't know!" Milton pled his defense. "I didn't know that new guy would do anything as horrible as that, and I didn't know that you were my daughter until this week!"

"And that's supposed to make it all _better_?" The woman demanded.

"No it's not." Milton shook his head. " It does not make up for a single thing that I have done over the years, but for whatever you must think of me at the very least know that I'd never knowingly put any realm in danger let alone the one your mother rules over… I still lover her too much for that… and as much of a horrible person I've been to you I'd never knowingly put any of my students in danger, whether they turn out to be of my flesh and blood or not."

The Evil Queen grit her teeth. "If you care so damn much then why aren't you trying to make it all better?" She demanded before turning around and tried to shuffle away as fast as her full skirts would allow.

"Evil Queen wait-!" Milton called after her.

"It's Clawstorm!" Clawstorm roared as she rounded back to the two men. "I never signed my birth name to that damn precious Book of yours! And servant or not a servant I'll _never_ commit myself to that cursed thing, _ever_!" She turned back around and tried to continue her trek but got her foot stuck in a lacy petticoat, the fabric ripping and wrapping around her ankle causing her to yelp as she tumbled down a small slope in the ground and out of sight.

"Are you all right?" Giles called after her, the two brothers wincing when she began cursing heartily in the distance.

"Language young lady!" Milton snapped out of habit before biting his finger when he realized that he had started to lecture _before_ asking if the woman was all right.

"You lost the right to lecture me years ago!" Clawstorm snapped. "Fucking skirts! Whoever decided that Evil Queens needed to wear all these skirts all the time deserves to be dug up and shot with a pistol!"

"Language young lady?" Giles whispered turning to Milton in disbelief.

"I know…" Milton slapped a hand over his forehead with a groan. "I didn't mean to. Its just habit at this point."

"Well that could have gone better." Giles sighed. "However it could have gone worse." The man admitted with a contemplative hum.

"How was that not the worst that could have happened?" Milton demanded.

Giles cast Milton a look. "She could have refused to talk to us altogether…"

"…And we would still have been in the dark about several key facts that we have apparently been deliberately kept in the dark about." Milton finished rubbing his tired eyes. "What a week this has been…" He sighed tiredly as he began walking out the door, Giles following after him.

"What do you suppose a pistol is?" Giles wondered as they walked out. "Is it some sort of slingshot? Or a newfangled word that the young folk are using these days?"

XXX

Raven woke with a start just as the glow from her arms died down. She sat up and stared at her decorated appendages in faint alarm, wondering if what she saw was a dream or not.

"Mmmmph. Raven?" Faybelle groaned as she turned over and peered up at the witch. "Did I sleep-conjure a fireball again?"

"No." Raven shook her head, she had enough experience with the fairy's habit of conjuring fire spells as she talked in her sleep (which was how Raven found out why Faybelle had more fire sprinklers in her room than normal) and usually after the initial blast of heat Raven's survival instincts kicked in and sent out a wave of her own magic to snuff out the fire, where she could then roll a muttering Faybelle over and go back to sleep (Raven was so used to sleeping through Apple's obnoxious snoring that Faybelle's quiet sleepy murmurings hardly bothered Raven at all).

"I… it was just a weird dream." Raven concluded while trying to blink away the travel of words behind her eyelids. "It was like I was about to be run over by a vocabulary list or something…"

"It's probably just the heat, you should take off more of your clothes." Faybelle grinned as the witch scowled at her. "What? We're married aren't we? It's only natural that I'd want to see… and enjoy you naked" The fairy waggled her eyebrows.

"First, it's the middle of the night, and second, I'm not going to let myself be stark naked alone in front of you until _after_ I've gotten over Apple and I've gotten to know you better." The witch grumbled reproachfully as she put some distance between herself and the fairy before lying back down. "I'm not interested in using you as a rebound."

"Well damn, I had been joking before about the whole naked fun times thing but now that you're sounding so considerate about it all… I'm kind of feeling motivated to steal your attentions and see what lies under those innocent white panties…" Faybelle tried to lift the sheets to peer under them.

Raven immediately clamped her arms down to prevent the fairy from seeing anything. "Excuse me?" Raven demanded in outrage. "I would have thought that being considerate and responsible would have turned you off!"

"You're appealing to the side of my fairy nature that likes to go out and steal pretty maidens from under uppity human royalty's noses." Faybelle explained as she grinned toothily at the other, her sharp teeth glinting in the low light of the triple moons outside the window. "And it helps that you're pretty easy on the eyes…"

"Yeah well you can tell your instincts that taking away that villain title counts as stealing me away, and that it's the middle of the night, and I am going back to sleep!" The witch harrumphed before turning over and cocooning herself in her provided sheet.

Faybelle snickered as she turned over to get some sleep herself the two of them not noticing Raven's henna designs glow again, even as the witch twitched at the strange feeling of electricity crawling under her skin and words flying across her eyelids.

XXX

"Cerise?" Briar asked, looking at the other in confusion when the hooded girl sat frozen to her spot looking like a deer caught in a low flying broom's lantern.

Cerise gulped, hesitating in the face of Briar's stare, why did she have to go and fall for the one girl who made her want to constantly leap into the unknown (granted that was mostly for fun recreational purposes but still…)? "Hey Briar… I know that you can keep a secret and… that we mean… more to each other than just friends but… you have to promise not to freak out too much, and to keep an open mind ok?"

Briar smiled, taking Cerise's chin with a finger so that she could turn the other's head towards her for a kiss that lingered longer than any she had dared give before. "I'm already this far gone, I'm not going to throw it all away so easily or do anything to hurt you."

Cerise closed her eyes tight and flipped back her hood before she had a chance to change her mind.

"Huh." Briar said after a few silent seconds. "This actually explains a lot." She mused sounding thoughtful and not at all disgusted like Cerise had feared.

Cerise cracked open one eye, the wolf ears that she had inherited from her father moved from their fearful folded back positions to perk forward cautiously.

Briar smiled widely. "Those are so cute." She confessed easily making Cerise's eyes snap open and a blush painted her nose and cheeks.

"You- you won't tell? Who my father really is? That my mother fell in love with her villain?" Cerise asked nervously.

At this Briar pinched Cerise's cheek gently. "Now why would I do that? It's not your fault you are who you are and besides, if I told I wouldn't get to see you again, I can't allow that now can I?"

Cerise smiled ripping out her page in the Book before turning to Briar and kissing the other girl back. "You have no idea just how happy that makes me." The wolf-girl said before going in for yet another kiss.


	19. Chapter 19

A/n: is doing that thing again where it says that I'm getting reviews but **_I can't see them_** , so for all of you who reviewed last chapter **_I'm sorry but I can't see what you said_** so if you really wanted to tell me something you should probably **_PM_** me for this chapter's reviews.

Also (if they ever fix the review thing) did they ever announce who had won the thronecoming king? I know that they did like four separate clips of all four queen candidates but did they ever announce who won the king title for the dance?

XXX

"Hey Ashlynn how did that slumber party at Blondie and Cupid's go?" Briar asked while holding her comforter up to her chin, when the other princess walked into the dorm.

"It was off the page!" Ashlynn grinned, lifting up the surprisingly attractive eye patch that Hunter had kindly decorated for her to wear at the dance so that she didn't have to feel as self-conscious about her black eye. "I'm actually going to sneak back there in a little bit I just forgot to pack my toothbrush in my overnight bag. I'm surprised that you never made it over, did things with you and Cerise go well?"

"Very much so." Briar grinned goofily.

"Awww did you two stay up and talk all night or something?" Ashlynn asked walking into the bathroom. "When me and Hunter first got together we'd spend hours talking until we had to rush back to the dorms before we got busted for skipping curfew."

"Yeah, talking…" Briar coughed, blushing slightly. "Cerise and I have actually been unofficially dating for months now so… last night was like taking the next step in our relationship… we got… a little closer than I had expected and uh "talked" almost too much, but neither of us regret it."

"Well that's even better." Ashlynn grinned as she reemerged from the bathroom with her toothbrush and toothpaste in hand. "It's always a good thing to progress a relationship along its natural path, that's what keeps these things going. Hey are you going to pop into Blondie's room, or are you going to sleep in?"

Briar smiled innocently as she tugged her comforter higher up her chin. "Sleep in… ya know, before I go and see how Apple faired the night spent in her dorm contemplating how much she loves Raven."

"Do you want to go alone or should I be there too?" Ashlynn asked sounding vaguely worried.

"It all depends on whether or not you feel up to potentially having to deal with a worst case scenario so early in the morning." Briar sighed. "But if you do decide to go, I'd like your support since she can be pretty unpredictable at times. By the way do you know who won the thronecoming queen and king titles last night?"

"Well…" Ashlynn cleared her throat. "Who… or more specifically _how many_ won the thronecoming queen… and king title… you'll just have to see for yourself on Blondie's blog since it's pretty hard to believe myself, and I was there. But let's just say that there was a computer glitch and a tie and… well everybody found it all in good fun so nobody opposed it."

"By the way could you hext Cerise to see if she wants to pop over or not before breakfast? Cedar said that when she went into their dorm this morning to get changed and that Cerise wasn't there, she's probably doing her morning run and nobody but you knows how to reach her when she's out running." Ashlynn asked while she stood poised to open the door to leave.

"I'll give her the message." Briar grinned, looking slightly panicked.

"Thank you!" Ashlynn called over her shoulder as she left.

Cerise waited a moment before she cautiously peered over the top of the covers.

"That was close." The wolf-girl whispered, her exposed ears twitching in the air.

"Are you talking about her almost seeing your ears or her almost seeing us wearing only our underwear?" Briar asked looking under the covers; they still had some clothes on since, _somehow_ , they had managed the presence of mind to stop before things got too far but in the moment neither one of them really wanted to put clothes back on…

"I'm pretty sure both would have given her a shock." Cerise scratched her head. "And somehow I get the feeling that she wouldn't have been very happy with our current state of dress… even though we didn't quite get that far last night…"

"She probably would have appointed herself as our designated chaperone." Briar agreed sitting up in order to reach for her purse lying haphazardly on the floor on other side of the bed, opposite the line of sight of the front door.

"Could you please grab the Book while you're down there?" Cerise requested to the other girl's back. "I just remembered that we forgot to rip out Raven's page."

"Oh! You're right! Well we can't have that now can we?" Briar exclaimed, sitting back with Book and phone in hand.

"Are you going to look up who won the queen and king of the dance?" Cerise said while she carefully pried open the Book, tapping the bit of eraser that they had jammed into the locking mechanism to keep it from sealing up tight whenever they closed it.

"It sounds like something rather interesting happened." Briar chuckled flicking through the contents of her phone. "Almost as interesting as our time last night…" The princess waggled her brows.

"You flirt." Cerise snickered flipping past the title page of the Book of Legends.

There was moment of silence when both girls paused as they read through their prospective materials.

"What the?" Briar blinked at the article she was reading.

"Is this a joke?" Cerise wondered looking the page in front of her over again.

"It says here that some computer glitch tied both _Raven_ and Daring for the king of thronecoming! They decided to run with it so Daring ended up walking Raven's picture in one hand, and Apple's picture- she had won thronecoming queen- in the other!" Briar exclaimed. "How strange!"

"I think that I can top that." Cerise said still staring at the Book in her hands.

"What's this?" Briar leaned over to look at the same page Cerise was pointing to. "Lady Raven _King_ -Queen? Keeper of the Book of Legends and… the original Snow White's one true _prince_?" The princess read out loud in disbelief. "Is that…? Why is there a drawing of Raven embracing Apple with dark-hair under the title description?"

Unable to say anything Cerise just shrugged and shook her head.

"Where's the page for the Evil Queen?" Briar wondered suspiciously turning the page only to pause once again.

"Faybelle Thorn, future _Evil Fairy Queen_ of the tails of _Snow White_ and _Sleeping Beauty_?" The princess exclaimed again.

XXX

Raven hugged herself and tried not to think about how uncomfortable she felt as she was being magically suspended in the air wearing only the white band from her wedding dress across her chest, and nothing else while she waited for the henna that had been placed from the bottoms of her feet all the way up her legs to her hips and backside to dry and have time to sink into her skin. To top it all off the nymphs had waxed her completely bare.

She felt very exposed.

"So… any ideas as to what our families will be discussing with us tomorrow?" Faybelle asked, her decorated feet swinging from the high perch that she had found so that she could both dry her feet and look at Raven's face.

"Most likely the majority of it will be about the Queen territory's quietly hostile neighbors, my mother, but perhaps we'll get some talk in about trade and more commerce between our people and yours… but most of all I'd like some answers… about what exactly had happened nearly seven years ago." Raven sighed.

"All that I was given were the facts found in the reports and some vague guesses that the investigators made while pursuing their inquiries, I always knew that my grandmothers and father knew more about it all, but they didn't want me involved too much in it while I was still so young, and since I had just assumed that my mother was the sole one responsible… I didn't have any interest in asking… but now that I know differently… I'd like to know everything that they do."

"Because if your enemy is not solely your mother then who are they, why did they try to kill you, and what are their real goals in all of this?" Faybelle murmured thoughtfully. "And here I thought that you only had to worry about the Royals trying to bully you into signing the Book."

"I can't believe that I'm saying this… but I almost long for the days where that was my chief daily concern, fights with Apple, cruel whispers, and all." Raven grumbled sourly.

Faybelle considered the witch for a moment.

"How do you feel about going shopping and trading your old clothes for some new ones tomorrow?" The fairy asked out of the blue.

XXX

Ashlynn and Briar walked into Apple's dorm to see the blonde princess hugging a black pillow to her chest

"If I'll become queen of Ever After anyway does that mean that I'm… allowed to forgo the title of Snow White and not have to marry Daring? I don't love him… but then there are my duties to be considered… and the fact that I'm the Royal faction's leader… but if I do decide to go through with becoming Snow White then… Raven… I'd never have a chance with her because she's trying to get over me and… I'm running out of time with this! But I need more time to figure something out!" Apple howled tugging at her hair.

Nevermore made little noises as she ate her breakfast, as if mimicking the princess's new habit of talking to herself.

"Yeah well I guess I could talk to her… but what would I say, " _please don't stop being in love with me because I kind of love you too but I need time to figure out whether I should go through with becoming Snow White or whether I should just become Queen Apple and kiss you, because ever since I found out I was in love with you kissing you is all that I can think about?"_ She might be understanding that I'm confused but she might also tell me that she's done waiting and needs to move on to her future." Apple sighed. "How do I convince her to wait just a little bit longer…?"

Ashlynn looked at Briar.

"Hooo boy…" Briar complained covering her face with her hand and shaking her head.

XXX

"So… my mother wasn't the one who cursed you?" Raven asked her grandmother early Sunday morning, feeling completely surprised. The two were sitting at a big wooden table along with the rest of the King family, Faybelle, Charlotte, and their respective mothers on one of the Thorn castle's terraces.

"If my daughter were to poison or curse me she would have been far bolder with her attack, not hiding in the shadows to attack me while I was unconscious and down for the count in magical power, like only a true coward would." Elenore sniffed knowingly. "And she wouldn't have left me a message telling me where you were my dear." She revealed to Raven. "I know what the reports say, but I highly doubt that the investigator's theories are true, but because I don't have the proper evidence to prove otherwise, I can't redeem her for at least the allegations of poisoning me."

"Down for the count?" Faybelle turned to the elder witch. "What do you mean? Had you been injured before you were poisoned?"

"There had been an incident before Lady Elenore had been cursed." The Evil Fairy informed her daughter calmly, making Faybelle realize that her mother already knew the full story. "I'm sure you've heard of the meteor that had landed on the kingdom neighboring the Queen territories."

Faybelle nodded. "Yes, it had left a crater half a mile wide just over the border didn't it?"

"It was a good thing it had just missed our lands or else it would have caused a lot of damage." Raven shivered at the thought.

"That's just it." Elenore told Raven gravely. "It nearly did. If air control hadn't detected it and if I hadn't been near the estate's central tower so that I could cast the spell that had created the magical shields used to deflect the thing away from us…" The woman's lips thinned. "One of our major cities would have been hit."

Raven shook her head looking both concerned and disbelieving. "Grandmother, that was an object the size of a full grown swamp troll and it had fallen from the sky at incredible speeds, even with your talents and magical strength, in order for you to deflect such a thing so that it could land safely miles away…"

Elenore smiled kindly. "I wasn't alone in casting the spell young one, but my actions did come at a cost… the temporary loss of my ability to use my legs."

"Temporary…?" Raven peered over to her grandmother's wheelchair.

Elenore shared a look with the Evil Fairy and the Evil Fairy's sister.

The Good King sighed. "Raven… you are old enough to understand now, and you will have to be dealing with these issues soon so… there is something that we should tell you."

XXX

"It's like there's this whole underground market going on at the school!" Daring reported to his brother excitedly as he burst into their dorm.

Dexter reached one hand out of his cocoon of warm covers to grab his alarm clock and blink blearily at the digital numbers displayed on it. "It's six thirty in the morning, on a _Sunday_ Daring." The younger boy groaned rolling over to glare at his older brother.

"It's the only time Ginger and the other witches Darling was talking about were willing to meet with me, they're all busy on the weekends making merchandise for their clients!" Daring explained belly flopping down on Dexter's bed and kicking his feet in the air as he stared at the lump of covers that was his brother.

"Why are you so interested in this all of a sudden?" Dexter demanded when it became apparent that Daring wasn't going to leave him to get some more sleep.

"Raven said to me once that she is working on finding ways to support herself when she graduates, as in she doesn't expect that they'll let her assume her birthright because of the crimes her mother committed and Raven being the heir to the title of the Evil Queen." Daring admitted. "I was just… curious about this group of witches she's apart of and… if they could tell me any more with what's going on with her. She's my villain and she's my friend, her acting so like she'll be banished at any second worries me."

Dexter peered further over his covers. "I've never heard you talk about Raven like this before." The boy said. "The most you've ever said about her in the past was about how much black make up she wears and how even a lesbian like her should find you at least _charming_."

Daring winced. "I'll admit I have been remiss about catching on to something being out of place up 'til now… I'm going to have to work on that… but I will not stand by and let her have an unhappy ending to her life…" Daring trailed off looking haunted.

"The time spent in the Book's memories and the truth of Raven's ancestor's story has really got you rattled." Dexter observed. "Not that I blame you, but you seem to be particularly focused on Raven."

Daring looked down shaking his head. "She should have never been cast as a villain!" He exclaimed. "Her mother wouldn't have turned out the way she did if it weren't for that lie! We have all been lied to and so many…" He breathed deeply. "So many people have suffered needlessly because of it. It has gone too far!"

"And Raven is caught up right in the middle of it." Dexter sighed sitting up.

"She has scars…" Daring confessed lowly. "Marks of a whip all up and down her back. Raven said that there are people who want to harm her family because she is related to the Evil Queen, and she has old scars from someone who had whipped her years ago."

Dexter put a hand over his mouth, his eyes wide. "Gods…"

"On Legacy Day I would have never guessed… I had just thought that it had to do with cold feet or girl drama I… I _feel_ … something that I've never… _felt_ before. I _don't like it_ , I want it to _go away_!" Daring sat up and held a hand to his chest looking slightly nauseous.

"We call that guilt Daring." Dexter said flatly. "And I'd say that it's being magnified by the worrying new information you've found out about her and her ancestor."

"How do I make it go away?" Daring asked desperate. "Most times I feel sick but sometimes it hurts! Right here!" He pointed to the place where his heart was.

"Well first… you could always talk to Raven herself about your concerns. Don't pledge to rescue her or anything; she doesn't like that, just… assure her that should she be of need of a friend and ally to help her… that you would be available to help her and will do whatever she asks of you." Dexter proposed. "She's a sharp tack Daring, she doesn't need to be rescued or taken care of, she just needs friends that she can count on."

Daring nodded. "I will speak to her as soon she gets back… when does she get back?"

"She hexted me last night." Dexter rubbed the sleep out of his eyes as he informed his brother. "She said that she'll be back eight o' clock our time today, so you can tell her once she's all settled down. I'll even hext her asking for a time for the two of you to meet to discuss your desire to promote her shampoo formula and your interest in her designing a series of beauty products specifically designed to your needs, Now if you don't mind; I'd like to go back to sleep for a little while." The younger boy informed nestling back down under his covers.

"I do like what she's done with that shampoo…" Daring patted his hair, which he had gotten many complements on over the weekend. "And that shaving cream… it would be so nice to have a reliable, good quality source for these things."

XXX

Raven sat down heavily on the white stone bench, leaning back until her spine rested on one of the gazebo's wooden supports, she tilted her chin up and breathed deeply. In a few minutes she would walk back to the dorms, face Apple, and go back to daily life at school, but for the moment she needed to look at the positives and scrape together enough calm and reason to carry on with life as an ordinary student until the next wedding ritual or if her home needed her.

She needed to focus on the fact that everything was just fine and she didn't need to over-worry about anything because the Queen lands had themselves a powerful new ally and it was just one ritual away until it had the legal backing of the high council _and_ come under the land protection act of the Grand Coven.

Raven gingerly (so that she didn't wipe off her make up) rubbed her face and took another calming breath. "Everything will work out, stop worrying, stop worrying…" Raven told herself reassuringly, moving the large white and blue woolen wrap she had on, more securely around her frame (going from a hot dessert to cool forest through mirror-travel did not give her the time to put something on that would have both hidden her new henna designs and be more appropriate for the cool morning chill of Ever After).

The witch twitched, putting her hands down and looking around when she felt eyes on her, and since there were no mirrors in the woods her mother wasn't the one watching.

"Hello?" Raven stood up and looked around. "I can sense you whoever you are, if you have something to say you had better-… Headmaster what are you doing out here?"

"I often come out here to think." Milton said cryptically, which _was_ the truth, but in this instance he had gotten a message from the Good King telling the school that his ward would be back on campus at eight and Milton had sent out some pixies to search for the witch and they had been the ones to inform him where he could find the girl. "But while you're here I'd… just like to ask you how your little trip went, on Friday I got a rather vague permission form about a religious piercing and… some form of… skin decoration?"

"Friday?" Raven furrowed her brows. "But I though that you had already gave permission for that… days before… oooh! They didn't wait for your permission did they?" The witch slapped both hands to her face and combed her fingers as much as she could (the tikka ornament, crown, and the way her hair was styled got in the way) before fixing her most apologetic look towards the older man. "Sir, I swear I was completely under the impression that you had signed the forms long _before_ Friday and as soon as my business is done and all the rituals finished I will take out the stud in my nose and let it heal over... you don't have to worry about the rest of it distracting the other students, I had always planned on wearing clothing that would hide the tattoos-"

" _Tattoos_?" Milton yelped his eyes wide. "And just where young lady are these tattoos?"

Raven sighed in resignation as she stepped down from the gazebo and removed her large shawl from around her shoulders exposing her arms, what part of her legs that were visible over her new knee-high boots, and the new dress that she wore (a dress more fit for a maiden than an Evil Queen, something that Faybelle had suggested and Maddie and Kitty jumped in to help her find when they had enough spare time to explore the local market).

The Headmaster seemed to choke on air for a moment one hand flying up to cover his mouth and impede any hasty remarks while his other hand reached out to loosely pick up the girl's arm by the wrist so that he could see the damage better.

Raven bit her (very light pastel purple) lip and winced at the old man's reaction. "They're henna tattoos spelled to last as long as my contract does, they are a requirement that I have to go through with my business arrangement with some… future allies to my maternal kingdom, and like I said before; I will wear clothing on days that I have school that will hide these and the future tattoos the best I can so that it won't become a distraction, and I will discourage anyone who asks from getting one of their own that is not related to any sort of religious-"

" _Future_ tattoos? Kingdoms Miss Queen! They've already got you drawn up like a painted egg from the Eternal Winterlands of the north! Just how much more do they expect you to be covered in… these designs?" Milton demanded his latent paternal instincts reeling in outraged shock, despite his best efforts to remain neutral and to keep in mind that Elenore had made it quite clear that he was to have _nothing_ to do with her family aside from the necessary, there was still this persistent voice in the back of his mind that screamed; _granddaughter, flesh and blood, piercing, and tattoos_!

Raven fidgeted shiftily. "… A lot more, but thankfully I won't have to go through any more painful piercings!" She tried to smile encouragingly in the face of his disapproving scowl. "At the very least I'm grateful that I don't have to pierce anything else… to be honest I don't like the nose stud much and it's still very sore despite my best efforts to take care of it." She mumbled nervously looking guiltily down at the ground while she gingerly prodded the tip of her nose, which was indeed sore. "And once again I thought that you had a better warning about all of this…"

Milton looked over the girl's overall apologetic demeanor and sighed in defeat, internally softening at the genuine expression on the witch's face. "You don't have to apologize Miss Queen. I will admit that I'm not at all happy about this but… this was obviously not your idea, and you weren't the one to submit that permission slip." He assured, giving the girl's hand a reassuring squeeze before letting go.

Raven relaxed slightly in relief since the Headmaster seemed more outraged at the unnamed new allies of the Queen lands for and not her.

"I really am sorry if this results in any inconvenience." Raven tells him. "But trust me when I say that it is necessary for my kingdom."

"I'm guessing by your tone that your not going to tell me what is so important that you would be willing to go through all of… this…" Milton grimaced as he gestured at the witch.

"I can't." Raven shook her head. "I'm not allowed, sorry."

" Evi-… daughters of the Queen clan shouldn't apologize on matters such as this. And what do you mean that you're not allowed? You're the heir to the throne for Ancestor's sake!" Milton couldn't help but chastise.

"It's… the kind of business that needs secrecy, and I can't tell anybody unless I get permission from the other people in this, but I'm sure if you can think of a good reason, my grandmother could tell you, I've got her contact information if you'd like." Raven offered, her brain wondering why the older man had halted himself from calling her an Evil Queen.

"Yes!" Milton exclaimed before remembering his place and stating in a more sedate professional tone. "Y-yes I would very much like that Miss Queen, how about you come over to my office and give me that information, and while you're at it could you please wright up a more detailed report on what your teachers should be expecting when you show up to class on Monday?"

Raven nodded. "Sure thing sir, I just need to pick up something hidden in the gazebo for my grandmother, she told me to retrieve this box that she and my grandfather had hidden there years ago to give back to her the next time that I see her."

"A-actually..." Milton blushed, remembering the box of love letters that he had discovered in his and Elenore's secret hiding place not long after the Evil- _Clawstorm_ had been imprisoned. He had gone there out of nostalgia and was surprised to find the box with all of their old love letters to each other inside (Elenore had somehow gotten her hands on the letters she had written to him, since he had foolishly thrown those out when he was a young man). "I… found that box a while ago. It's in my chambers, if you want I can get it for you?"

"Thank you." Raven studied the Headmaster's face. "Tell me; If I were to open that box out of curiosity… will I be scarred for life?"

Milton's blush deepened; internally battling whether or not to remove certain… incriminating letters or to just take the risk and give it all back to Elenore. "Well those letters are very romantic…"

"Never mind." Raven held up a hand and screwed up her face as if pained. "I won't look, I'd rather not know how my grandmother and the former love of her life, no doubt it would be both life scarring… and heartbreaking." The witch turned to retrieve her duffel bag from the gazebo.

Milton considered the girl's words for a moment. "He was the love of her life?" He asked blinking in surprise.

"Yeah." Raven huffed as she walked past him. "She's said so herself more than a few times over the years, she keeps blaming her sentimentality and the cautiousness of her heart for the reason why she hasn't quite moved on yet, no matter how hard she tries she still finds herself a little too cautious with taking the plunge into a serious relationship and no matter how much she curses and works at it she can't ever quite get him out her head you see. Personally I think that the part of her that will always love the good person he used to be feels guilty that she decided to keep the fact that mom was his daughter a secret from him, and she was left wondering about whether or not he would have snapped out of it and gone back to being the person she fell in love with if he ever did find out."

"What did your mother think of all this?" The Headmaster asked a strange catch in his voice.

Raven thought for a moment. "She was torn between agreeing wholeheartedly with her mother's decision for going with caution and protecting her as a baby and… wanting to know who her birth father was. Grandmother always said that if mom really wanted to know then she'd tell her… I guess mom was afraid of what she would find if she ever did know so she never asked much about him."

"And you?" The Headmaster's voice was smaller, more defeated this time. "Do you still not want to know about your grandfather?"

"To be honest I don't have the _time_ to wonder about him." Raven said exasperatedly. "I suppose that if things ever settle down I might get curious enough to find out who he is at the very least, but right now, between my kingdom's issues, the Rebels, school, getting the hang of my magic, the mess my mother left behind, finding the Book of Legends, practicing making potions, living the witch's lifestyle the best I can in a dorm room, my _roommate_ , and whatever insanity that seems to pop up on a weekly basis around here… I barely have the time to sleep a full six hours a night! And what little free time I have during the day I'm making up for my lost sleep by napping! As terrible as it is to say, but finding my long lost grandfather is _not_ an option. I don't have that kind of time to devote to looking him up, judging whether or not it would be worth seeing him, and then dealing with the drama of him finding out that I'm the grandchild he never knew he had!"

"… I suppose nobody can argue with that…" The Headmaster commented a strangely amused lilt to his tone.

XXX

When Raven carefully tiptoed into her dorm she found the room empty, much to her guilty relief, right now she just wanted forget about her responsibilities to her kingdom and that oddly awkward half hour she just spent in the Headmaster's office where Giles studied the designs on her arms with keen interest and the Headmaster taking forever and a day to find her grandmother's box, and then nervously asking strange things when he got back like; if she ate well on her trip and how things were going in her classes. It almost felt like he had wanted to tell her… or ask her something but kept biting his tongue about it.

She just needed to focus on putting her things away, take out the bits of metal in her hair, and lie down in her own bed for a little while until her head was in proper order again.

Moving with nearly desperate speed the witch had taken her boots and socks off, put her washing kit and new clothes away, and had gotten the hair fasteners that had been keeping the mass of it pinned up and swept off to the side out and was now working on getting all the gold and silver loops, hair cuffs, and her new crown out before she worked on the tikka, not noticing when the front door opened.

Apple stared at the girl standing in front of Raven's mirror, the pink and purple skirt of the girl's dress flowed as if weightless behind her, parting in the front to reveal the expanse of exotically painted legs, the bodice was of a corseted design that flattered the curve of the waist and bust and accented the winged appearance of the shoulder straps and the violet sleeveless undershirt that collard close to the girl's neck, her painted arms moved expertly in removing the thorny, modestly jeweled ringlet crown from her head, the metal of her hair jingled lightly as she moved, the soft sound, Apple felt, accenting the soft strokes and light tones of the girl's make-up, overall making the girl look like an angel.

Nevermore purred in greeting as the tiny serpent dragon flew across the room and twined herself around the angel's shoulders, talking all the while.

"Hello Nevermore." Raven spoke petting the chatty dragon's head. "Did you miss me?"

"Yes." Apple spoke weakly, not waiting for an answer before stepping forward and wrapping the witch in a tight embrace.

"I missed you." The princess whispered exhaustedly into the exposed flesh of Raven's neck, nearly falling asleep when painted arms wrapped around her and held her frame up.


	20. Chapter 20

A/n: The comment issue has been fixed! Yay!

XXX

 _How did it end up like this?_ Raven wondered looking down at the passed out princess on top of her. One minute Raven had been taking metal bits out of her hair and the next Apple had came in and hugged the stuffing out of her and somehow the two of them had ended up in a tangle of limbs on Raven's bed.

"Mrrr errp? Mrrr!" Nevermore seemed to declare as she landed on Apple's back, continuing to talk at the bewildered witch.

"Since when did you talk so much?" Raven asked her familiar. "When I left on Friday I was lucky if I ever heard you make a little peep noise every once in a while."

"Peep! Peep? Peep." Nevermore parroted.

Raven squinted at her dragon suspiciously. "Did Apple feed you sugarplum flowers again?"

"Mrrrp. Peep!"

XXX

Milton walked calmly down the hallways of the main school building after his usual rounds surveying the weekend lunch hour in the castleteria, keeping his face as normal as possible until he reached a deserted sunning balcony on the sixth floor.

"Were you able to find out what those designs signified?" Milton asked coming up behind Giles who was sitting with a stack of books on a wire top table.

"I have narrowed down those designs to have originated from an ancient tribe of witch-mage hybrids from the Sands and Rivers region neighboring the Jungle Elven lands of Nandor'. Not much yet on the exact purpose of the designs aside from the fact that they are there to cement a contract of sorts and to either restore or take something from Raven, I couldn't tell since the type of designs used were… well they looked older than anything that I've come across from that area in the books I've studied." Giles rubbed his chin in thought.

"If I were to take an educated guess… I'd say that whomever Raven is making a deal with, it has to be with either a powerful witch or mage family… maybe."

Milton shook his head. "What kind of contract requires such… extensive measures for a little girl?" He demanded upset.

Giles cast his brother an odd look. "She's seventeen. At the age of legal witch adulthood Milton."

"I know…" Milton looked off to the side shiftily, wincing when Giles raised his brow pointedly. "I know that I shouldn't be acting so-… and I probably wouldn't be feeling like I should have as much say in whatever is going on or be as concerned as I am if I had never found out about her heritage. But she _is_ my granddaughter, and further more I do not want whatever is going on in the Queen kingdom to harm her as it has done her mother and grandmother… I do not want to mess things up a third time."

"I think that you would have still cared if you had never known." Giles speculated. "Raven had come down to visit me with Madeline on more than one occasion, and whenever she spoke of you she often commented on how she feared that you would worry yourself into the grave if she didn't create a minor token deed of evil whenever you called her down to talk "sense" into her about her life choices."

"She had been pitying me." Milton realized rubbing his temple with shaking fingers. "She had felt sorry for me and so she continued to turn me into a chicken not because she had the inherited urge for an evil deed but… because she felt bad for me." The old man pouted.

Giles rolled his eyes. "Brother… I realize that finding out that girl is your heir has made you feel… a certain level of paternal protectiveness towards her, as you do have some right to be. However I caution you that if she were to find out who you are right now it might not end well, especially if she ends up feeling like she has to choose between you and Elenore."

"I understand that." Milton grumbled sullenly.

"No I don't think that you do." Giles countered sternly. "What I am saying is that you considering wanting to take on the responsibilities as a father _and_ grandfather are too important to leave Elenore in the dark about. Now I know that actually talking to each other will be very difficult for you two, but since you have two young witches who are involved in this as well one of you needs to make the first move and since you are the one who has found out about all of this…"

Milton seemed to deflate a bit. "You are right… but what am I to say to her? She was so certain that I would become a danger to our daughter that she had chosen to keep me in the dark that I was… that I _am_ a father. And ever since then she has had dozens of prime examples of why I would have been a terrible father to throw in my face! How do I keep her from lashing out at me for being the person I was in the past, and how can I think clearly at all when I still love her and I feel guilty for the things that I have done but at the same time I am… so hurt… and angry that she had never told me! Like I had never… mattered to her. She- she didn't trust me with my own child and… it was as if she had thought that I would have been a threat instead of a father!"

Shaking his head Giles fixed his brother a pointed look. "I'm afraid that is something that you are going to have to gather up the courage to ask her about to her face brother."

Giles sighed. "You must remember to keep a cool head when you do ask but nothing can be solved in this unless you two sit down and communicate with each other. You two can be as cold and politely disagreeing all you want if it comes to that, but the fact is we have Clawstorm who is terrified that an enemy that we unwittingly unleashed upon her kingdom and family is going to start a war, and we have Raven who is having to deal with the consequences of trying to avoid war and assassination attempts by refusing to sign the Book of Legends and creating a contract of unknown terms. Unfortunately for you and Elenore, we don't have the luxury of the two of you dancing around this issue, we need to find out what is going on and we need to reestablish communication between our sphere of influence and the leader of the Queen territories."

"I put a new letter in the box I gave Miss Queen." Milton swallowed. "If she doesn't burn them all right away…"

"Elenore will do anything to protect her family, a letter is a good start but it will take more than that to convince her that we are the good guys and to let us help." Giles reasoned. "If you are calm and polite yet very clear about where you stand, I'm sure that the two of you will be able to work things to an equilibrium. But it has to be _soon_."

"Understood." Milton nodded glumly.

XXX

"So… your dad is gay, your mom just thinks of him as a friend, your mom used to _bully_ my mom, Sleeping Beauty tried to seduce you… and essentially everybody in your family has lied to you about happy ever after's and your legitimacy for your throne." Raven listed off slowly.

"And then you told me that there were people out there who wanted to hurt you and take away your birthright just because of who your mom is. And basically my entire story is one big lie!" Apple finished with a sniffle into Raven's chest.

"So Daring finally told you that the original Snow White didn't have a happy ending." Raven guessed.

Apple nearly asked what the witch was talking about but at the last second decided to bite her tongue. "You were in Daring's story right?" The princess asked shakily.

Raven smiled warmly at the memory. "Yes… it was very interesting actually. I got to meet the memory of the original Snow White; she was… very enchanting and rather kind despite how life had treated her. It could not have been easy to find out that her Prince Charming was actually into necrophilia."

"He was _what_?" Apple looked up sharply.

"… You never talked to Daring… did you." Raven concluded, disapproval of the princess using such trickery to get answers coloring the witch's tone.

"He said that the original Evil Queen was a nice lady who was just trying to protect Snow White." Apple volunteered. "That means that she was never the horrible person that the story said she was."

"Snow White did love her step-mother." Raven informed sadly. "But she had been young and inexperienced to romance when Prince Charming came around. I don't think it ended well for any of them in the end… I'm sorry Apple."

"You talked with the original Snow White?" Apple asked, trying to distract herself. "Did… what did she say to you?"

"Well…" Raven hummed. "She talked about her story and I talked about my life and…"

The witch studied Apple's face, realizing that there was something specific that the princess wanted to hear, had always wanted to hear from her ancestor since the day she found out that people had a problem with her blonde hair.

"She said that she could _feel_ whether or not her descendants found a real happy ending or not. She said that it broke her heart when some of the new Snow Whites never found their happy endings… she told me that the only thing that she cares about is… that you find happiness." The witch smiled a little at the princess. "It doesn't matter to her what color her descendant's hair or skin is, she just wants her heirs to be happy Apple, in whatever path they choose."

Apple seemed to sag in relief against Raven, tension in her muscles relaxing to the point where the princess seemed to mold into the body below her.

"Pretty…" Apple murmured almost dreamily as she ran fingers up and down one of Raven's arms, the witch uncurled the appendage from around Apple's back to lay submissively beside them for the princess's inspection.

"I'll be stuck with these… and later there will be a few more of these… for a while so… I'm glad you think that they're pretty." Raven sighed into Apple's hair, smelling the familiar scent of the shampoo she made. "At least your reaction is way better than the Headmaster's."

"He didn't like them?" Apple guessed, trailing little patterns into the other's skin.

Raven huffed out a laugh. "No he did not. I was afraid that he was about to have a coronary with they way he reacted, it was a little heartbreaking to see him just itching to lecture somebody about these but at the same time knowing that his opinion does not matter to the people I'm in a contract with. To be honest I think he kind of felt sorry for me, or as sorry for me as he can be, and that's why he had been so nice about it."

"Maybe he feels guilty about the coin incident a few days ago." Apple narrowed her eyes dangerously. "As he should be…"

"I'm sorry that had led to you finding out about all of that stuff and making you feel so down." Raven petted the princess's hair soothingly.

"It's better that I know now and not sometime farther into the future when everything's happened and it's too late to change things." Apple spoke against Raven's collarbone. "I'm… confused and unsure about everything but… I… I'm not as scared anymore about not getting my birthright or a happy ending because I don't fit the script… I… feel a level of control I've never… dreamed about before. It's terrifying because I don't know if my actions will grant me a happy ending but… I have a fighting chance now to- and I can't believe I'm actually saying this- not end up like my parents! I want to find a way to be happy, on my own terms, terms that I have better control over."

"I'll help you in whatever way you need… sans me becoming the Evil Queen of course." Raven swore, reaching her free hand around to cup the princess's face, a bittersweet look in the witch's eyes. "No matter what boy you end up choosing to fall for, I'll support you."

Apple slid her hand down Raven's arm and twined her fingers with Raven's. "And if I didn't want a prince or a boy to spend my happily ever after with? Would you still stay by my side if the one I chose did not fit the script, was not the one I was promised to? Would not be seen as a proper match? "Unseemly" I think is the term you used to describe it."

Raven's eyes blinked wide because… wait. Was Apple, the Apple White-miss-perfect-princess-of-the-century saying that she was… gay? A lesbian? …Or was she saying that she… maybe preferred someone that was a troll or… a naga or something of that nature (even though naga's, a creature with a human upper portion and a snake's tail where it's legs would have been, did not come around Ever After often because it was too cold for their cold blood to do well in the chilly forests) it wasn't unheard of for a human to fall in love with such creatures.

"Uh… it would be pretty hypocritical of me to say that you couldn't… if you were talking about liking someone of the same gender… And if you ended up loving something like a fairy or a were-animal-kin I'd support you then too." Raven supplied helpfully.

Apple rolled her eyes into the side of Raven's neck. Of all the times for the witch to be so clueless about an obvious hint…

"Hey Raven…" Apple began, changing tactics. "That girl you've fallen in love with… don't give up on her yet okay? The stories are all lies and the Book is gone, it'll be confusing for a lot of people to come to terms with that but… with just a little bit more time I think that… there might be a chance that you and she can be together? …She just needs a little bit more time to come to terms with everything so… can you please give her time? You don't have to wait forever, but please just… give her a chance to sort things out about the future… please?"

Raven stared sightlessly up at her canopy.

"How can you be so sure that she'd give me a second glance? I mean she's… a textbook perfect maiden and I'm… not of the right stock and I'm a girl."

"You're perfect in you own ways too Raven." Apple swore fervently. "She'd have to be a complete fool not to see it! Just… trust me on this okay?"

Raven breathed deeply through her nose. "I'll try." The witch allowed. "But I can't wait forever and… I can't say for certain that, if she does get around to saying that she likes me back, that I'll even be available… but right now both she and I have time I guess you could say… because I know that romance for me right now is completely off the table until I get things in my kingdom sorted out and if she is as nearly as confused as… you then she needs time to get all of that other stuff sorted out before she should be thinking about romance too."

"You're so sweet." Apple squeezed Raven's hand and turned her face to peck the witch on the cheek. "Yes I think that princess has a lot to sort through." She assured. "I guess life overall has… made things just way too crazy for a simple answer to things. I'm sorry by the way, for causing you so much grief about destinies. It's ironic, I think, how you refusing to become my villain… actually might have saved me, of all people, some major grief in the future."

"You just wanted a happy ending and concrete assurances that everyone you cared about would still exist… I can't really fault you for that." Raven shrugged her shoulders. "I accepted this about you long ago and… I was willing to put up with it regardless. I-… I care about you too much to just… walk away when you were obviously terrified."

"But I did end up hurting you… and apparently my constant badgering combined with your- _very patient by the way_ \- tolerance of it has… given some Royals the impression that you're… my pet? Which is very strange to say out loud by the way." Apple winced guiltily.

"Well I _do_ wear those collars you got me…" Raven trailed off teasingly.

Apple rolled her eyes. "Because you look good in them and they're all feathery, like your namesake, not because I want to own you, or think that I own you like _that_."

"I know." Raven smiled slightly.

Apple bit her lip. "Thank you for at least considering waiting, even if there is no guarantee on either end of this, and things are just so…"

"Crazy complicated and stressful?" Raven supplied squeezing Apple's hand back.

" _Immensely_ so." The princess grumbled.

"Meee! Mawk. Mewrrrrl?" Nevermore talked to herself as she walked around the short entrance hallway, marveling at the way the walls made the sounds she spoke echo slightly.

"Okay seriously, what did you feed her? Because she wasn't like that when I left." Raven demanded in a confused tone.

"All I did differently was talk to her." Apple shrugged looking confused herself. "I thought that is was cute that she would answer back… she just hasn't really learned how to stop yet."

"Mrrrrp!"

XXX

"So…" Duchess looked at the message that Raven had sent to her mirror pad with both eyebrows raised. "These are all the Rebel maidens who'd like to give their stories to me?"

"Just the ones that I had the chance to talk to last week." Raven said while exchanging books from her locker for Monday morning class.

"There are so many!" Duchess shook her head in disbelief. "How… I never thought I'd say this but; how am I going to choose just one of these?"

"Faybelle's proposed that you go down the list and practice switching roles with a maiden for a week, neither one of you guys has to be particularly good at being each other's stories, but if you, Duchess, end up liking a particular story then you get to keep it. I got all of those maidens to sign a contract so that you get the first pick and they can't give their story away to anybody else until you've decided which is the best fit." Raven informed, all business.

"Why would they want to give up their stories for mine? Or for no story at all?" Duchess shook her head disbelieving; she had thought that most maidens would have stayed away from her story like the plague.

"Well some of them aren't all that enamored with having to live a fairytale and are looking for a way out, and others…" Raven trailed off.

"They don't want to marry a prince." Faybelle said bluntly. "Disturbingly enough there are apparently a lot of maidens who don't mind the idea of escaping that whole marriage thing by… well, you know… I have a sneaking suspicion, that if a girl like Tiffany got your story, that lake would be made up of tears of glee and not sorrow."

The three girls peered down the hallway to where the mentioned girl was, Tiffany had surprised attacked Edward at his locker, tied him up and had secured a wedding veil to his head so that she could methodically dye the white material black by going over it with markers.

Edward seemed to only offer up the occasional gripe about his mistreatment but for the most part resigned himself to suffer in silence in the face of pure disgust and rage emanating from the tiny blonde's body in waves.

"She must be still ticked off about her parents sending her all that wedding stuff." Faybelle observed neutrally.

"Can I try out her destiny first?" Duchess asked, a sort of morbid curiosity lacing her tone. "Tying up Edward and dragging him around looks like fun!"

"We still have ten minutes before class." Faybelle stretched her hand out to motion that her friend should go for it.

"Will Edward be all right after all of this?" Raven looked to Duchess's retreating back in concern.

"Oh don't worry about him, he's used to the treatment." Faybelle waved off the witch's concern. "And might I say that you look positively maidenly today? Especially since you're wearing the Thorn clan's seal out in the open like that?" The fairy grinned wolfishly (which was very effective due to the sharp teeth being displayed) at the witch, as she looked the other up and down in approval.

Raven had chosen to wear one of the simpler outfits she had traded her old clothes for (in most fairy territories shop keepers allowed for customers to trade in a certain percentage of items in exchange for a certain amount of things that they sold in their shop, and since Raven's old daily clothes were of high end quality and had precious metals used as decoration in the outfit itself… the witch had ended up making out like a bandit with some great deals on a new weekly wardrobe) and the fairy had to admit that it did look good on the witch.

The outfit was only comprised of a long sleeved white peasant shirt, a silk purple vest with decorative black buttons (the face of each button decorated with the witch's traditional three sided infinite knot), purple bracelet gloves that were secured in place with a silver middle finger ring (just enough material to hide the tattoos but still not make the wearer overheat), plaid black and purple skirt, skin tight black leggings, and the witch's new dark purple knee-high boots... but it seemed to suit the witch's personality better than her old daily outfits, Faybelle approved. Especially since the witch wore a choker with the Thorn clan seal pendant dangling from it and a matching buckle secured to the belt holding up the witch's skirt.

"That should show Lizzie not to make overtures onto what is mine." Faybelle grumbled heatedly (in Wonderland wearing somebody else's tribal seal on their person meant an engagement or marriage into the advertised family).

"You aren't wearing your crown." The fairy noticed after a moment of mentally tearing into Lizzie Heart's proclamations of marriage to Raven. Instead of a crown the witch wore her bridal tikka and some large cuffs in her mass of hair.

"I haven't really been feeling like I deserve to wear a crown." Raven admitted lowly. "I just feel… like I'm not doing enough, and that I'm being reckless attending a fancy school so far away from my kingdom that might very well need me at a moment's notice, I mean how is a bunch of villain classes supposed to prepare me for serving my people properly?"

"An educated ruler is a wise one for her people and a dangerous one for her enemies." Faybelle said a hand on her hip. "You are a Rebel correct? Then for next quarter sign up for the classes that both interest you and will help you prepare you to serve your people well. By now you should be able to handle the Headmaster if he makes a fuss about it."

"I'm going to end up driving that poor man insane by the time I graduate from this place." Raven shook her head in dismay.

"He's only bringing it on himself so don't feel guilty about it." Faybelle assured sagely. "Good luck with convincing Daring to help sponsor your shampoo later at lunch."

"Thanks." Raven smiled at the other. "The hext I got from Dexter sounded encouraging so I think that maybe Daring sees good things in my potion. Hopefully he can help me convince the O' Hairs to buy the patent and begin mass production starting with their local shop to test things out first."

"See, you're already making a name for yourself as a good little potions master, if necessary, becoming an enchantress will be but a hop and a skip away." Faybelle smirked, feeling content that Raven was taking her part of the token marriage seriously by making herself a valuable asset to the Thorn clan.

"Hopefully that'll happen just like you say." Raven's smile widened before she walked away to get to her first class.

XXX

"I've discovered that in order to get the right amount of heat to be produced in the magic potion of the shaving cream it has to come from scents derived from plants that grow in lots of sunlight." Raven explained passing some vials of sample scents she had prepared earlier for this deal. "These are the scents that Hunter and a few other people have found acceptable."

"If that's the secret then why haven't I been able to find shaving cream that's just as warm as yours on the mirror-net stores?" Daring asked making an agreeing hum when he took a whiff of the vials, which contained a strong citric and cinnamon scent.

"Those companies go for either musky or artificial woodsy scents in their products, since many plants that grow in the sun have a more floral, spicy, or citric scent to them the big companies don't use those scents because they don't fit into their demographic of what men want to buy and they fight tooth and nail against the companies who do try to incorporate the scents that do make the potion warm up properly because it would cause too much competition for them, so these days if you want to get the kind of heated shaving cream that you're looking for, you either have to go to a local source or know somebody who makes it." Raven explained while skimming over the contract that Daring had handed her first thing (much to her surprise) for the O' Hairs to buy her shampoo potion recipe.

"I like these scents better than the strong musk scented stuff I had tried out on Dexter's skin before, and Darling downright despised the scent the moment I uncapped the bottle." Daring mumbled taking a second whiff of a eucalyptus and lavender scent. "And I'm a _Charming Prince_ , I think that their demographic is flawed."

"They are reaching out to _desperate_ non-charming young men who buy their product because they advertise that pretty young women will throw themselves at them if they use their product." Raven chuckled searching her purse for a pen. "It's a false advertising ploy that's worked out for them well in the past, and I advise you to be careful when buying musk scented products in the future, depending on the creature the musk is extracted from you may very well end up either repelling the non-humans around you or attract them a little too well."

"Extracted from… creatures?" Daring asked looking nauseated.

"Musk is extracted from the scent glands of animals." Raven explained. "And since people like the animal-kin and fairies have such strong scent receptors…"

"Ah." Daring nodded understandingly. "Does it bother witches too? Because I heard that you guys can see in the dark like a cat can so do you have an advanced sense of smell too?"

Raven poked the tip of her (still sore) nose self-consciously. "It bothers witchlings and new mothers more than normal adults, because we are trained to handle often strong smelling ingredients in our potions and spells we build up a scent immunity to most things, but if the scent is obnoxious enough we need to wear special masks to combat the offending smell."

"Is that a nose piercing?" Daring tilted his head to peer at the girl's nose in surprise, he had only just noticed since he had been so preoccupied with thoughts about the reasons why the witch had scars on her back and what beauty products he should ask her to make for him.

"I'm conducting business for my kingdom that required me to get this as well as some decorative skin pigment designs done for religious ceremonial purposes." Raven stated breezily as she signed and dated the contract in front of her, extending her hand to shake Daring's as a show of a deal completed.

The witch looked up at the sound of twin cheers of triumph coming from a corner of the outdoor café she and Daring were seated at, her expression turning baffled when she saw that it had been the O' Hair twins who had made the sounds.

"I may have mentioned that Apple and some of the local Wonderlandians used your product regularly." Daring shrugged. "They were impressed when I gave them a small bit to test out on Poppy's hair. They said that they'd be interested in buying any other product formulas you make for me too, " _fit for a Prince Charming_ " is what I believe they called the product line idea."

"I'm flattered." Raven stated honestly, sliding an envelope with her patent, recipe, and copies of her formula notes to the boy. "And thank you for helping me with getting this deal, I really appreciate the help."

"You're my friend." Daring stated as if that explained everything. "And as your friend… I um… I want you to know that whatever is going on in your kingdom right now… if you need me or one of my siblings to help with anything, no matter how small, we'll do it, no questions asked and discreetly if that's what you want."

Raven blinked in surprise completely taken aback, she stared at Daring for a few moments before her expression turned contemplative.

"There is something… a hunch that I have I suppose you could say, I don't know if it'll pan out or not but… can you and Dexter check something out for me? Secretly? I don't expect anything to come out of it but just incase it does… it would be nice having an unbiased third party there to see things with a clarity I do not possess…"

XXX

"You want me to see if there's anything weird with this florist's website?" Dexter asked nodding to his personal dorm computer screen.

"Yes." Raven nodded. "I have been informed that some… potentially hostile individuals to my kingdom have been reported have bought out this company… which is strange because what use does a very rich lord have for one tiny little shop as an income source?"

"Maybe they just like flowers." Daring supplied pointing at Dexter's computer screen. "Like that pretty blue tulip that they have on the home page."

"I didn't know that they sold blue tulips." Dexter commented. "They are rather pretty."

"They don't." Raven shook her head. "Blue tulips are insanely rare, a genetic anomaly that many have tried and failed to replicate, the last recorded one to have existed in Ever After was over five hundred years ago, when an ancestor of mine had gifted one of those to a king of the Great Sands and Stone region by the Middlesea in the hopes of bartering her daughter back from his harem."

"I'm starting to see a pattern with your family." Daring cast the witch a sidelong glance as Dexter began typing onto his computer. "That had a happy ending I hope."

"For my ancestors yes, for the king and the flower… not so much." Raven shook her head in amusement. "The king had a reputation for being way too arrogant for his own good, and like she predicted he smashed the flower and it's pot onto the floor where the deadly creeper vine spell that she had put on the plant's roots had activated, she held both the king and all of his top officials captive and threatened to overtake the kingdom for herself to rule over unless she and her pregnant daughter were given safe passage back home… but in a twist of events the people of that kingdom had already been set to revolt since there had been a drought and the current king had horded all of the emergency food rations to feed both himself and his élite friends in lavish parties at the palace, and so she was crowned a national hero."

Raven shrugged bemusedly. "And after she proposed that she use her magic to create these giant golems to help the local farmers try an irrigation and dam technique to help distribute water to their fields more efficiently… they ended up assassinating their own king and crowning her their new ruler. Her great-great granddaughter the current presiding ruler today, nice lady, very willing to do tulip trading with her relatives in the Queen kingdom."

The two boys turned as one to stare at her.

"Anyways…" Dexter began. "You were right about there being something off with this website; I ran an algorithm on this tulip picture and the reason why the color of the tulip is blue is because somebody has put a large amount of information inside the coding, resulting in the corruption of digital information causing the hue to go from white to blue."

"Are you saying that there is large amount of hidden information hidden inside the color of a flower picture?" Raven asked sounding mystified.

"Oh yes, and by a lot I mean a lot." Dexter moved to the side to show that his computer screen was now filled with neat columns of bright green computer code. "It will take a while before I'm able to decode everything but given the time I think can do it."

"Thank you." Raven smiled at the two brothers. "Thank the both of you. Please contact me as soon as you're able to decipher something, I don't care how small it is."

"Will do." Daring said and Dexter nodded in agreement.


	21. Chapter 21

Cerise and Briar stared at the same spot of the decorative rug in the middle of the princess's dorm room.

"So we're agreed that we keep that nice hidden away in there? And we tell no one until we have a better grasp of what's going on?" Briar asked for clarification.

"Better be safe than sorry on this… whatever freaky weird thing is going on now." Cerise agreed. "And what about that envelope full of papers written in code that we had found under the Book? What have you decided to do with that?"

"Humphrey owed me a favor, I didn't tell him about us finding the Book, just that I found those papers in a secret cubby in my room, and I asked him if he could keep hush about it while he deciphered the code. He seemed to get pretty excited when I showed him the papers… said something about numbers translating into letters and leet speak." Briar shrugged. "He said that he should have something for us in a few weeks."

"Well at least he's having fun with this." Cerise murmured.

"Things are more than what they seem with the Evil Queen." Briar said grimly. "What is her game?"

XXX

"Why did I have to go for the classic look? How many buttons does one dress need anyway?" Clawstorm snarled under her breathe as she noticed that she had buttoned the last few buttons in the wrong holes of the Evil Queen dress that she was currently trying to stuff a mannequin into.

"This is a bad idea." Little Red Riding Hood said to the kitchen mirror of her family's cottage.

"You said the same thing about me fake-poisoning Wonderland and the rest of those worlds Simone." Clawstorm huffed wiping sweat off of her brow; suddenly she didn't mind it so much that she was currently walking around in her underwear now that the burn of the workout it took to undress herself and dress up the life-size mannequin doll set in.

"Need I point out to you that you are currently trapped inside the mirror dimension?" Simone drawled. "And how did you manage to get that creepy doll thing in there with you?"

"Ever since that talk with father dearest and my uncle they've both been avoiding the room where the portal mirror is. Also the Headmaster never seemed to stop and consider that there _is_ more than one entrance into this place, nor did he think about my family's natural affinity over mirror magic. My body might not have the ability to leave through any other portal aside from the one in the Headmaster's chambers but my golems can." Clawstorm moved to fit tight sleeves over the doll's arms. "One of those places being this cracked old mirror in one of the abandoned mansions around the forest of the school, a little glamour spell here, a distraction there and one of the clothing shops in the village was missing a mannequin and some of their merchandise."

"…It's a good thing that you don't actually have an interest in blowing everyone sky high." Simone sighed in disgust. "I still can't believe that the Headmaster is your father! It makes sense now as to why he was always such a creep to you in high school!"

"He was only really bad those first few months of third year before Legacy Day." Clawstorm reminded finishing touches to the dress. "After that he tried to stay away from me like I had the plague or something."

"And forced you to fend for yourself against the maiden brigade!" Simone growled. "Neutral trusted authority figure my foot!"

"They mostly left me alone after I poisoned my princess a few times." Clawstorm murmured a few words under her breath, her form shifting into a new shape.

Little Red Riding Hood squinted her eyes. "I still say you shouldn't have included that fantasy potion in with the sleeping one. Normal people would have left you alone after the first time, but she just kept coming back practically begging for more."

Clawstorm in her new teenaged form picked up the new dress she had stolen and started stepping into it. "A part of her probably realized that her perfect prince batted for a different team, she just wanted to keep believing that there was going to be a happily ever after waiting for her after graduation."

"You've always been way too merciful towards her." Simone sighed. "By the way you might want to glamour a few things with the dress and shoes unless you want somebody recognizing them."

"Thanks." Clawstorm brushed her now red hair out of her face while she flicked her fingers over her new outfit, magically altering the appearance. "I'm off, I should be seeing you at your home in less than a few hours."

"This is way too reckless." Simone warned.

Clawstorm shook her head. "I can't stay here Simone. Not after learning that he's my-… my father. And because of all those lies people have fed her over the years, Raven hates me so much that she's put a privacy spell on over half the school's mirrors! How can I protect her if I don't know what's going on?"

Simone shook her head. "I know… just be careful alright? It's bad enough that my husband and I have to hang out with one of our oldest friends through a mirror and pretend that you are the worst criminal witch since Morgana, we don't want to lose you in a worse way this time!"

"King Charming and his lovely wife have my back on this, like all of you have always had my back. It'll all go to plan." Clawstorm assured grabbing the mannequin around the waist. "I'll see you later."

"I'd better." Simone grumbled as Clawstorm disappeared in a whirl of magic.

XXX

It _had_ all been going to plan, Clawstorm had set up the mannequin just far enough away for the ever-present fog to cover it, yet make it just visible enough to give the illusion of someone standing in the distance, she crawled out of the mirror without incident, snuck out of the study, opened one of the windows facing the lawn leading to the dark forest, looked around cautiously to make sure no one was looking up, and hopped out the window.

It was when she was walking across the lawn towards an awaiting King and Queen Charming that Clawstorm found trouble.

"Excuse me!" A bubbly blonde girl popped out of practically nowhere, nearly startling the witch out of her own skin. "Hi! I'm Blondie Lockes lead reporter of Ever After High's news club, do you mind sparing us a few moments of your time?"

Uh… I- I guess…" Clawstorm looked around her to find that she had been surrounded, three other students all sporting some form of equipment for lights, sound, and a mirror camera. "I don't… mind…"

"Goody! Could you please state your name?" Blondie smiled encouragingly.

Clawstorm's mind raced. "M-Mira Shards? Daughter of the enchanted mirror- but not the current Evil Queen's mirror!" The witch was quick to assure. "The Evil Queen from six generations back had this mirror that… adopted me! Yeah… it's all kinda complicated…"

"Oh you don't have to worry." A girl with pink hair assured kindly extending her hand. "I was adopted too, the name's C. A. Cupid, daughter of Eros."

"The god of love?" Clawstorm's eyebrows almost touched her hairline as she shook the girl's hand. "I didn't know that destiny was in the Book."

"It's not." Cupid assured. "I was sent here to help out after Legacy Day and the budding new romances that are forming due to the Rebel influence."

"And speaking of Rebels we are taking a new pole on who identifies as Rebel and who identifies as Royal, what do you identify as?" Blondie asked putting her microphone in Clawstorm's face.

Clawstorm looked over the blonde's shoulder to see the King and Queen Charming discretely gesturing for her to keep going.

"I'm a bit new here so I only know the basics… but if I had to choose…" Clawstorm shrugged awkwardly. "I'd have to say that I'm neither, personally I don't see a reason to be either one, I am who I am and whether or not I become a character in a fairytale is… irrelevant."

And it was the truth, she may have at one point (before Kline-bastard had made himself known) tried to collapse the whole nonsense with everybody needing to sign an ancient artifact and assume the identities of a bunch of dead people, but she was never against anybody following their roles if they wanted to (she was a prime example seeing as how she never signed her name in the Book and still ended up the Evil Queen)… she just wanted to expose all the flaws in the current system so that her daughter didn't have to live with so much racism about witches being evil like she had (she missed the old days when the issues were simpler and not all cloak and dagger like they were now).

To Clawstorm's surprise she was surrounded by hums of agreement and thoughtful nods of heads.

And that's where she found more trouble; because apparently her answer had been so unusual that she suddenly found herself having to answer more questions about herself that Clawstorm was struggling to come up with on the fly while keeping everything vague enough so that she wasn't caught out in a lie.

"Who would have guessed that there was someone with a destiny with such neutral views!" Blondie commented brightly.

"Oh I haven't been registered for classes yet…" Clawstorm coughed embarrassed. "The Enchanted Mirror just arranged for me to pop over here to get a good feel of the place first."

"And I certainly hope that you have found your visit to be very productive Miss Shards." King Charming came up behind everyone, much to Clawstorm's relief. "I'm sorry to interrupt kids but right now my wife and I need to escort Miss Shards back home."

"Alright." Blondie nodded before producing a business card and handing it to Clawstorm. "When you enroll please consider joining the news club, we could use a neutral party and you've got a good feeling about you. I think that you are sure to be a fine reporter in the making."

"Thank you, I'll consider it." Clawstorm took the card and smiled politely.

XXX

"You guys can't seriously be considering this!" Clawstorm nearly whined to the six other people sitting at the table in Simone's cottage kitchen. "I've already graduated high school why would I _ever go back_?"

"You said to Simone that you needed to get a better understanding to what is going on." The Big Bad Wolf pointed out while wrapping an arm around his wife.

"You need to protect the young miss from any potential attacks by your enemies without scaring her away in the process." Maid Marion crossed her arms.

"And what better way to do that than to go undercover as your daughter's classmate?" Queen Charming shrugged her shoulders.

"You did make a good first impression today, maybe this time around you'll have a better high school experience. You'll at least be able to take all the classes that you're actually interested in, we can supply you with the right documents while you test out off all the boring gen-ed classes so that it's all the easier for you." King Charming proposed.

Clawstorm ran fingers through her hair agitatedly. "And what about you Ramona? Do you think that this is a good idea as well?" The witch demanded Beauty (from the story Beauty and the Beast), the coolest, most reasonable head of her group of friends.

"The better question is; what lengths are you willing to go to for your daughter and the rest of your family?" The woman asked but her level stare indicated that she already knew the answer.

Clawstorm hung her head in defeat.

"I hope that this all turns out as foolproof as all of you are making this out to be because right now… we can't afford me being found out." The witch reminded.

"Nonsense." King Charming assured. "Starting next quarter Mira Shards will be the new resident student genius at Ever After High!"

Clawstorm swallowed thickly, silently saying goodbye to the pair of jeans and sneakers she had on at the moment, for it would be nothing but skirts and heels for the next foreseeable future.

XXX

 _Several weeks later…_

Mira Shards opened the door to the news club tech room and poked her head inside.

"Hello? Um it's Blondie right? I don't know if you remember me-"

"Of course we remember you!" Blondie giggled as she and the rest of her club turned their attention to the door and smiled at the witch warmly. "It's hard to forget about the most anticipated new student of Ever After High! After your little interview with us we've been flooded with questions about when you'll be enrolled! You left quite the impression on everybody!"

"That explains why so many people knew my name in the halls." Mira laughed nervously, stepping inside the room. "Um… you said something about me joining your club?"

"Come on right in." A blond boy with glasses grinned and gestured with his arm for her to sit next to him. "Let's get started."

"All righty." Mira Smiled bravely.


	22. Chapter 22

"Whoa what is this?" Sparrow exclaimed grabbing Raven's exposed arm and looking at her henna tattoos with extreme interest. "That is sick man! I never pegged you as the tattoo type. Where did you even get this done?"

Raven sighed despairingly.

It had been several weeks since the first set of wedding rituals had taken place and to Raven's relief it had been a rather quiet grace period, the neighboring kingdoms to her own had remained as quiet as the day her mother tried to conquer _everything_ (according to her yaya and grandmother that disastrous show of power by her mother had been a mixed blessing, as in it had successfully petrified the hostile lords into thinking twice about starting anything with the scary witches), and school had been relatively… normal (or as normal as Ever After High could ever get), in fact things had actually been improving in her school life much to her cautious relief.

With most of it's leaders suddenly falling silent in their daily proclamations about the importance of maintaining tradition the Royal faction was left to scratch their heads and wonder among themselves as to what was going on, and the Rebels, having been mostly left alone in the wake of all the confusion, peacefully went about their own business and mostly seemed to keep out of causing trouble with the other faction.

The most trouble between the factions seemed to come from Duchess and her new league of casual maiden acquaintances, Duchess having gone through trying out the entire list of the other maiden's destinies still felt undecided about which one to take, so the other maidens proposed that she continue trying out all the different rolls on a daily basis, they didn't mind since none of them wanted their fairytale titles and were happy to be rid of people saying; " _oh it's the daughter of so-and-so the future so-and-so_ " instead of saying their birth names and refusing to recognize them for more than their family's stories.

With Duchess taking up the token acting out of their stories the maidens could protest others people's predisposed ideas of them by pointing to Duchess and saying that they weren't keeping their titles (which caused a minor scandal but most Royals were too preoccupied with their leaders lack of opinion on the subject).

So far everyone involved was happy with the arrangement, Duchess had even seemed to have had some of her cold attitude towards other people thawed out a little. She was certainly far more pleasant towards Raven these days.

Except for Edward. Edward did not approve of this idea at all and he was not happy with the arrangement whatsoever.

He had an entirely new reason to despise Mondays especially since Duchess seemed to be even worse than Tiffany when it came to not acting the part, for Duchess's fight or flight instincts when it came to somebody trying to spook her were _all fight_ (teeth, feathers, super strong dancing muscles, and all).

After the third day of that first week Edward had stopped trying to get Duchess to scream and runaway at the sight of him, which not many people blamed him for since getting hit in the nethers and thrown like a Frisbee out a window by a girl half your size and weight (and who looked fantastically terrifying when she was stuck between morphing from human to swan) was just not something that many people had the heart to tease a guy about (save for Sparrow since he had grown up with Duchess and did not feel the need to pity what he considered to be Edward's hilariously stupid actions).

Duchess had held a grudge against Edward ever since those first three days and had taken great pains to befriend Tiffany so that the girl could teach her all the secrets that were involved with tying people up with rope. And since Edward could not seem to perfect the art of pleading to Tiffany to _please get Duchess to stop_ without mentioning destiny or the fact that he thought that Tiffany should just adhere to the script already… he always ended up with an angry Duchess _and_ a peeved off Tiffany going after him while Sparrow laughed and teased in the background.

Speaking of Sparrow…

"They are for religious and important trade negotiation purposes, I did not get these on my own will and I did not get them from around here." Raven sighed, cursing the fact that she had to pair up with the boy for lab work. Usually she was able to keep her tattoos hidden under her sleeves but for lab she had to take off her gloves and roll up her sleeves so that she (since Sparrow never did anything in lab) could work.

"Is that how you were able to get that nose piercing? Because when I tried to get permission for one I got shut down so fast I don't even think that the Headmaster even read what I had to say." The boy pouted.

"Kingdom business and cultural sensitivity, triumphs over what the Headmaster thinks is appropriate for his students to adorn on their skin." Raven sighed taking her arm back so that she could get to work. "And as you may have noticed I am being polite by hiding my arms and legs so that I don't cause too much issues."

"Since when have you ever been one to be concerned about whether or not you'll cause other people issues?" Sparrow said looking down his nose at her.

"Since I want some relative peace before the rest of my body is all done up and nothing short of a ski mask and a full bodied cat suit can hide all the henna designs." Raven grumbled adding an ingredient while stirring their assignment in a glass bowl. "Don't get me wrong, I don't mind the designs or being done up for the sake of my country, but I'm not too thrilled with the people around here calling me the tattooed girl."

"Who cares if you're called the tattooed girl, this is too awesome for you to just hide!" Sparrow insisted. "If I was allowed to get to get even a small tattoo I'd be showing that baby off to anybody with eyes… it's a real shame that there isn't a tattoo parlor in the village or I would have gotten one already, permission and scary needles be damned."

"Henna tattoos don't use needles Sparrow, it's a plant mixture that dyes the skin like ink will dye a white shirt if spilled. Normally the pigment fades away after a few days to a few weeks but in my case the henna had been spelled to last as long as my contract does." Raven eyed the contents of the glass bowl critically when it began to bubble.

"Huh." Sparrow said sounding suspiciously interested. "So if I were to get my hands on this henna…"

Raven spun to face the boy fully. "Am I going to have to worry about your mother showing up to my dorm with a fencing blade demanding why her son has henna stained all over his skin? Because I _do_ take fencing classes now and I have been there when she had to be the substitute teacher for us, and since I value my life I will have no qualms using anything at my disposal to throw you under the carriage on this issue."

Sparrow rolled his eyes. "Relax will ya? Ma and I have a deal going on; if I get a tattoo so does she. And since it's temporary it'll be even better 'cause we can experiment with all sorts of different designs and not have to worry about getting surgery to get it removed."

"…In that case, as long as you don't involve me or the person who puts the designs on you if you ever get into trouble over it… I will not stand in your way, have fun." The witch dismissed the argument and turned back to the liquid in the bowl.

"So you're getting your entire body done?" Sparrow asked returning to his curiosity.

"Even the bottoms of my feet, my palms, and my face." Raven confessed since there was no reason to hide what was going to become obvious very soon.

"Sick!" Sparrow grinned.

Raven sighed again.

When the boy fell unusually silent the witch looked up to see that Sparrow was shyly glancing at something… or more like _someone_ over her shoulder.

"You know you stand more of a chance with him than you think." Raven murmured quietly when she noticed that Dexter was making eyes at Sparrow too.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Sparrow mumbled sullenly.

Raven took one last glance over to the lab space across from them and sent a silent apology to Cupid who was staring at a blushing Dexter in perplexity.

"He's like us Sparrow. He… has feelings for his own gender just like we do. And I've known Dexter long enough to tell that he finds you attractive. Even if you two don't get together, he'd… he's been really depressed about having to hide who he is, and while having someone like me around has helped, I'm not… of the right gender to understand some things- _certain_ things that only another male would know." Raven whispered as discretely as she could, hoping that the ever-observant Cupid did not pick up on anything off.

Sparrow took a shaky breath. "Yeah." He said his voice thick with emotion. "I sure can relate to that. Pretty damn perfectly."

XXX

From across the room Clawstorm glanced away from her and her lab partner's work to peer over to where her daughter was working. At the sight of the strange designs on Raven's arms Clawstorm couldn't help the quiet exclamation of shock that left her throat.

"Mira are you okay?" Humphrey, the sweet boy that he was, asked the woman masquerading as a girl in concern.

"Uh… yeah… I was just… those markings on the little lady, they look familiar that's all." Mira coughed eyes blinking back tears.

"The little lady?" Humphrey asked looking around him.

"That's what the citizens of the Queen territories have called Lady Raven Queen since she was just a babe', it is believed that she is the spitting resemblance to Lady Edonia Queen, granddaughter to the first Evil Queen and the first Queen in history to sign the Book of Legends, since the original Evil Queen had died before she could be coerced into signing it." Mira explained taking a deep breath.

"Oh. That's cool." Humphrey blinked at Raven curiously. "I had heard the rumors that Raven had gotten tattoos along with her nose piercing for some sort of secret deal. You said that you recognized those markings; do you know what they stand for?"

"Not exactly…" Mira half lied. "I just recognized them from a ritual I had researched when I was younger. I was home schooled and the Enchanted Mirror wanted me to have a basic grasp of most of the main witch cultures you see and one of those cultures included the Sands and Rivers region, and the Lands of Sand and Stone… where I've seen pictures of henna designs similar to the little lady's used for legal contracts of weddings, title transfers, business deals, and cementing allies."

Which was all just another way of describing a token marriage. Not that Humphrey seemed to pick up on it seeing as how he just nodded his head and shrugged.

"I'm thankful that I don't have a kingdom that I have to look after." The boy confessed. "Sounds like such a complicated thing to have to take care of while still in school."

"It is indeed." Mira nodded sagely.

XXX

"We'll be leaving for the third ceremony early Saturday morning." Faybelle greeted Raven as soon as the fairy had shut the door after the witch had stepped into her dorm for their weekly after school tea and sleep over.

"Good." Raven breathed, because Saturday was just two days away. "An increasing amount of people have started asking me about my tattoos after every lab I have to do, and I'm pretty sure that quiet new girl from my maternal homeland has figured out at least the nature of these tattoos, if not the whole story."

Faybelle clasped her gloved hands together self-consciously, the fabric hiding her own marriage tattoos. "I think that Cupid might be catching on too, I accidentally burned a pair of gloves off of my hands during hex-cheer practice the other day, she had been covering a story about our new routines when it happened, I swear her eyes looked like they were the size of dinner plates when she saw my hands! And then that Mira girl walked by and just stared at me like I was the solution to the mysteries of the cosmos! That would also explain why I caught Blondie at study hall surrounding herself with books about fairy and witch rituals and laws."

The fairy nodded to her bed. "I keep rechecking out all the books that have the potential to lead Blondie in the right direction and stashing them under there but it's only a matter of time I would think before her astute skills with detecting pull through for her."

Raven deflated, limply flopping down on Faybelle's bed. "And I keep catching glimpses of the Headmaster and Giles watching me during class and around the school, Daring's turned mother hen on me more than a few times in the past couple of weeks, and Apple's starting to get anxious. I actually had to run around half the campus before I was able to lose her tail on me as I was trying to make my way here!"

Faybelle's expression soured. "I thought that you said that you and she had talked it out and she had promised not to bother you?"

"She promised not to bother me about fairytales and trying to force me into a destiny." Raven clarified. "And following me in an attempt to find out who I've been meeting secretly with for the past few weeks isn't so much an act to bother me as it is a logical part of Apple's personality and thinking process, to be honest it was a miracle that she had been able to hold herself back from following me those first three weeks since we've started this."

The fairy stared at the witch in equal parts respect and horror.

"You consider this behavior normal?" Faybelle asked slowly.

"Normal for Apple." The witch shrugged before sighing despairingly. "So overall it would seem like we are at the cusp of being found out." Another sigh. "So much for peace and laying low."

"Has that Charming boy translated that stuff he found on that lord's flower website?" Faybelle asked.

Raven shook her head. "He still has lots that he needs to decrypt, but he has retrieved a list of soil contractors that those lords have yet to harass us with and several banned formulas for the use of the rare creatures and plants from the Queen lands and the Dessenti sea sponge for poisons or expensive gifts to lure in allies greedy for a false prospect of getting rich off of our pilfered resources. Oh and he found a nasty video file of the prime minister to the neutral kingdom neighboring ours and some man who was _not_ his wife going at it, accompanied by a blackmail letter threatening the prime minister to side with the enemy lords who were trying to annex the Queen kingdom."

"This would explain why that narcissistic pretty boy has been on you like a worried mother wyvern lately." Faybelle nodded. "Sounds like more than enough to warrant a few arrests and heavy fines of certain kingdoms' lords, with luck we'll get enough to strip the bastards of their titles and shut them all down."

"I'll be issuing all the evidence to my grandmother along with that box she asked me to give to her first thing when we get there." Raven sat up to unlace her boots.

"You're seriously not going to open that thing to at least find out who your grandfather is?" Faybelle asked, a troublemaking glint in her eye.

Raven cast the fairy a flat look. "My grandmother is a passionate woman, and has no reservations with proclaiming this in very expressive words. Even the Headmaster was cherry red when I had asked him about whether or not he had read those letters."

"Ah." Faybelle's troublemaking glint was replaced with slight revulsion. "Didn't you say that at one point the Headmaster and your grandmother…?"

"I really would rather not think about it." Raven shuddered. "I've always wondered why the Headmaster didn't banish me after Legacy Day… now I know why…"

"The power of a woman's wiles is a thing to be respected." Faybelle mused. "Though on the flip side it was probably jealousy over your grandmother having a witchling with your grandfather that had caused him to act so horribly towards your mother."

Raven shook her head. "I still can't see Headmaster Grimm being that cruel. Sure he's been irritating at times ever since I've turned my back on destiny but… he's never been cruel to me."

"Probably realized his mistake after your mother lost it and tried to bring all those realms down with her." Faybelle clicked her tongue. "Human hearts are volatile things, they don't follow rules well."

"I'm not sure that witch's hearts are much better." Raven sighed. "Grandmother still can't get over her first love and I… am stalling the inevitable conversation that I might just have to have with Apple if I am ever going to get over loving her."

"Being married to me might help things." Faybelle pointed out. "At the very least she can't accuse you of coveting on her while living in the same dorm as her if you are working to move towards a brave new future."

"A brave new future filled with cloaks and daggers." Raven rubbed her temples with her fingers. "I'm starting to see why my mother went insane."

"By the way did you already give my new prince and princess _the talk_ yet?" Faybelle asked.

"Cupid and I will be grabbing Daring tomorrow after class. For the record I am not looking forward to this so you better appreciate it." The witch grumbled.

"I would think that it is Daring and Apple who should be the thankful ones." Faybelle moved to sit down beside the witch. "If it were me in your shoes I would have gone for mischief rather than mercy."

"I'll be sure to point that out once Apple starts in on me for giving up my birthright." Raven rolled her eyes.

XXX

"You brought me here to talk about what?" Daring squeaked.

Raven sighed blushing slightly. "It's family tradition, all the future Evil Queens save for my mother sat their princes and princesses down and talked about how not to mess things up during the wedding night. Apparently way back in the old days there had been some… issues so the Queen's being witches and thus taught about this kind of thing in a more… liberal manner stepped in and after a while the parents to our human counterparts traditionally left us in charge of being the ones to… give you an advanced version to "the talk" if you catch my drift?"

Daring held up his hands and shook his head. "I already know about it, you really don't have to…"

"It's just a formality. I don't want to be here any more than you do. Which is why I'm just going to ask you a few basic questions, and if you already know the answers you are free to go and we never speak of this again." Raven promised worrying her hands together. "But if you don't Cupid will be here to step in if I get too embarrassed to explain things properly."

"And teach you some extra things that might be helpful." Cupid chimed in cheerfully making both witch and prince twitch.

"Apple's going to get the same talk?" Daring asked mostly to stall; he looked around Cupid and Blondie's dorm as if he feared that something might try to jump out and bite him and he fidgeted like his padded chair had needles under it.

"…I decided to go with a more subtle approach with Apple." Raven said cryptically.

XXX

Apple blinked at the strange sight in front of her, the previously well-maintained row of books that she kept on her desk had been messed with. Some of her old books had been left to rest atop some new ones.

Apple reached out for a book, nearly dropping it a moment later when she read the title.

XXX

Daring raised his hand. "I opt that I just get some books and leave."

"I had suggested that but I was shot down." Raven grumbled miserably.

"This is not a matter to take lightly Daring." Cupid chastised casting Raven a flat look. "It's one thing to know about sex, it's another to know how to actually preform the act. There is more to it than what the initial talk talks about, if you don't know what you're doing you could end up hurting both Apple and yourself. Torn skin on your nearest and dearest is nothing to think small of."

"Torn-! What?" Subconsciously the boy put his hands protectively over his groin.

"For the record; I apologize in advance, and I did try to just get you some books to read." Raven piped up.

"Oh come on Raven, this isn't going to be nearly as bad as you two are making it out to be." Cupid rolled her eyes.

"I'd like to argue to the contrary!" Daring blushed.

Raven really hoped that Faybelle appreciated her having to go through all of this so that the fairy didn't have to.

XXX

"What happened to you two?" Cerise blinked, as she stared at the two blushing people who were staggering past her in the girl's dorm hallway.

"I didn't know people could do that…" Daring murmured with a hand to his chin, a haunted look in his eye.

"Today Daring and I learned that perhaps tradition is over rated." Raven grumbled tiredly.

"More like X rated." Daring pointed out weakly.

"And to never ask a friend to help in matters such as this… they tend to be too helpful." Raven scowled.

"I'll never be able to look Cupid in the eye ever again." Daring hummed wearily.

"Especially if they are the daughter of Eros." Raven's scowl deepened.

"Especially then. Especially, _especially_ then." Daring continued to hum. "Maybe I'll become a monk."

"I would not blame you after all of that." Raven's eye twitched. "Dreadfully sorry I didn't try to orchestrate an escape."

Daring patted her on the back. "Is okay, you were busy curled up on the floor and covering your ears."

"I should have just given you the books." The witch sighed guiltily.

"You did say that you tried. But at least I learned something… a whole lot of something…" Daring trailed off.

"Should we pretend that this never happened?" The witch proposed.

"Probably for the best that we do." Daring nodded. "Well, I'm off to take my vows for the life of a monk."

"And I'll be gleefully throwing myself in the middle of one of Apple's scolding sessions." Raven declared as she wandered away.

"I'd look good in a robe." Daring mused as he walked in the opposite direction.

Cerise looked between the departing figures.

"I probably don't wanna know…" The hooded girl shook her head and continued on her way.

XXX

"Um… Raven…?" Apple awkwardly held up one of her new books.

"Trust me it was either give you that or having you sit down and listen to Cupid explain it all to you." The witch glared at the floor. "I can tell you from experience, _that_ is far more unpleasant than reading a book."

Apple surveyed the witch for a moment. "Is this about that family tradition of yours? The one where the villain is supposed to teach the future king and queen about the wedding night?"

"You've heard of it?" Raven asked as she kicked off her shoes and flopped onto her bed.

Apple slid out of her own shoes and crawled onto Raven's bed to curl up beside the witch. "Mom said that I should not be surprised if it happens, your mother skipped out on her talk with my parents but you… are different so…"

"I worry about you two." The witch confessed. "Even if you don't end up getting married to each other, I still want you guys to be happy."

"It that due to honor or is it because you like us?" Apple murmured into Raven's shoulder.

Raven quirked up her lip. "Both actually. Though there's a bit of witch culture bleeding through this too. How little you seem to know about this actually worries me a great deal."

"So your books have proven." Apple states dryly. "Although… I think that I'll only be needing this one." The princess holds up the book still in her hands.

"You'll make some lucky girl very happy." Raven swallowed thickly.

"Hopefully." Apple sighed. "Hey Raven… are you still willing to wait a little bit longer for your princess? She still needs time."

"Are you ever going to tell me who this mystery maiden is?" Raven asked with a raised brow.

"No mystery, I know who you have a crush on." Apple assured. "You've just been missing the obvious hints that I've been dropping proving that she likes you back. So… will you be waiting?"

"My personal life is still on hold until everything's sorted out." Raven closed her eyes, wondering why Apple was talking in riddles all of a sudden. "But to be honest I haven't a clue what life is going to throw at me next."

Apple sighed taking Raven's prone arm and resituating it around her shoulders so that the princess could curl up better around the witch. "I guess we just take things one day at a time." The princess murmured into the witch's shirt.

XXX

"Nice work Mira!" Blondie praised as she walked up to the witch in question outside forest facing the dorms. "Thanks to your investigative work the Marsh King's restaurant has been closed down for both polluting the local rivers and mishandling the food in his restaurant!"

"I wouldn't have been able to gather all the evidence needed if I didn't have Miss Ashlynn and Mister Hunter's help." Mira smiled shyly. "Really the only thing I did was discover was the source of the illegal dumping of swamp grease and take the video."

"Hey don't sell yourself short, you really did do a good job!" Blondie patted the redheaded witch on the back. "Mark my words; you'll be made into a true reporter yet if this keeps up!"

Mira nodded, accepting the praise. "Thanks chief."

"No problem, I'll be seeing you tomorrow!" Blondie waved as she departed.

"See you tomorrow chief!" Mira waved back.

"Second round of high school seems to be working out well for you." A gruff voice spoke from behind the trees.

"I'm surprised too wolf-boy." Clawstorm sighed leaning back until she had her spine resting against a tree.

"Don't you mean Professor Bad Wolf?" Came the teasing reply, Clawstorm could just see the outline of a fuzzy muzzle out of the corner of her eye.

The witch snickered. "Don't try your luck old friend, I'm only calling you that while other people are around and in your advanced biology classes."

"Ooh, don't look now but it looks like your secret admirer is looking for you." One furry claw appeared out of the shadows to point to a familiar glasses wearing blond.

"He didn't see me did he?" Clawstorm hissed now beside the Big Bad Wolf and behind the tree line.

"You moved rather quickly." The man laughed.

"Don't get me wrong old friend, Humphrey's a sweet boy and all but I'm not a cougar, and I've already learned my lesson when it comes to forming an attraction to your high school best friend." Clawstorm muttered as she peeked around the tree, Humphrey had a bouquet of flowers in hand and was looking around, searching for someone. And Clawstorm feared that someone might be herself, Bad Wolf had a sense of smell so acute he could detect the pheromones coming off of a un-perfumed human up to ten yards away, if he said that a boy liked Clawstorm, she'd believe him.

"I remember." Bad Wolf huffed quietly. "I was in love with you, you were in love with Simone, and Simone was…"

"Simone was politely pretending that our antics didn't embarrass her." Clawstorm finished. "That or she was holding in her laughter to spare us our hurt feelings. It was always difficult to tell with that wife of yours."

The wolf-man hummed in thought. "You know after I had found out that you used to have feelings for Simone I had thought that you only went for the fairer gender, but then you had that thing with the Good King and I got confused all over again."

Clawstorm smiled, a bittersweet look crossing her face. "Raphael and I met while our mothers were conducting business back during senior year of high school and I got to go back home for the weekends and soon after that the two of us bonded… in a way… we used to be each other's wingman for when we would disguise ourselves and go terrorize the local watering holes with our combined awesomeness.

"We were never an official couple; about a day or two before I fulfilled my princess's happily ever after and was so rudely sent an un-invitation telling me that I was not to be present at our beloved Snow White's wedding- not that I would have wanted to go anyway but still- Raphael so kindly offered to buy me all the drinks that we could stomach, the subject of sex was brought up, a bet that I can't remember for the life of me what it was about was formed- though I think I won-… and the finishing blows were one ripped expired condom and one killer hangover that made me forget to take the morning after pill, and ultimately made me pregnant with Raven." The witch shrugged.

Bad Wolf winced. "…Remind to never ask about your personal life ever again." The man complained. "Because you are so not romantic. Like at all."

Clawstorm smirked as if she were proud of the man's words. "If I was half as romantic as you wolf-boy I'd be the one who married Simone, however it's lucky for you that I managed to get over her and that she only goes for manly men with fur all over."

"She really does like the fur." Bad Wolf admitted smugly.

"Raphael did offer to marry me you know, once I told him the child in my womb was his and he turned all nesting father-to-be on me." The witch sighed in annoyance.

"You didn't punch him too hard did you?" Bad Wolf asked, mildly concerned.

Clawstorm pursed her lips. "Didn't have to. All I did was remind him about how crazy high school had made me and he snapped out of it, remembered who he was talking to, and went back to treating me as a friend."

Bad Wolf was silent for a moment. "It seems so unfair that you were never really given a chance to get over all the bad things that other people threw at you during high school. It had started with just a little racism and kept getting worse as time moved on."

The witch scowled. "At least now I know that most of it was due to mom moving on with her life without the Headmaster in it, though he claimed that it had been mostly jealousy derived from him thinking me being the child that he had thought mom had loomed with some other man… he was never as bad or as persistent as the maiden brigade but he sure as hell didn't help any."

"And what are you going to do now that he's found out that he's your father? Hex, what are you going to do with this information?" Bad Wolf asked. "Whenever I walk under his office windows my ears keep picking up on him trying to talk to you- well he's talking to the mannequin in the mirror, but still he thinks that it's you in there."

The witch snarled, her eye twitching. "Well right now I'm going to let him keep talking to that stupid doll, and if by some stroke of unimaginable luck he'll continue thinking that I'm still in the mirror and I won't have to interact with him for the rest of his life." The witch spat. "If he's smart he'll try working on gaining a better relationship with my daughter but he's still light-years away from me ever considering even willingly being in the same room as he is let alone speak to him about him being my father."

"Light… years?" Bad Wolf winced. "You know, ever since you came back from your little emergency visit to that other world your vocabulary has gotten really weird."

"Hey, Boo York was totally ghoul man! And I learned lots from those mad scientist classes at Fright University." The witch smirked. "If I didn't like Raphael and my kingdom so much I would have taken Raven and moved there while I was still pregnant with her, that place is far more appropriate for a smart witch like her to have been raised in."

"Speaking of your daughter, you said that you found out something?" Bad Wolf steered the topic of conversation away from subjects involving how Clawstorm's life could have been different, the witch always got really depressed if she thought about how easy it could have been to just runaway that day when Clawstorm got her princess's un-invitation, how she could have left Snow White to wait for days and wonder when Clawstorm would be coming for her before finding out that the witch was never going to come and fulfill her story.

Bad Wolf didn't know where Clawstorm stood on that old issue, on one hand the witch was intensely proud that she stuck to her family's honor code; but on the other hand she regretted being so merciful to the woman since Snow White _had_ been the witch's single most persistent bully, even when all the others lost interest and left the Clawstorm alone.

The witch leaned her head against the smooth bark of the tree. "She's struck a deal with the Thorn clan; I recognized those markings on Raven and that Thorn girl's skin from back before our Legacy Day when I had been researching ways to get out of becoming the Evil Queen, it's a special kind of token marriage that is designed to exchange titles in return for regaining honor."

Glowing golden eyes blinked in surprise. "How do you feel about this?"

Clawstorm grinned. "My little girl is way smarter than I ever was at that age; she's keeping quiet and getting out of this before anybody has a chance to stop her. She's gaining her freedom and she's not letting anything stand in her way. To be honest I couldn't be more proud of her if I tried."


	23. Chapter 23

"I'd never thought that I'd ever say this but; what is your brother doing to Raven?" Sparrow asked Dexter as the musician handed the other boy a to-go cup of coffee. The two of them had been spending more time with each other since from about a week ago when Sparrow decided to heed Raven's advice and ask Dexter out for some coffee and companionship (the witch had been right Dexter was lonely). Sparrow was looking out the large window that their table sat right next to inside one of the many tiny coffee houses littering the village.

Dexter followed the other's line of sight to see his older brother in the midst of a heated conversation between himself and Raven across the street. Daring had both of his large hands cupped around the witches shoulders and the look in his eyes were intensely worried, Raven had one hand on Daring's forearm and the other was on his bicep, moving up and down soothingly as she spoke calmly to the taller.

"Daring's growing worried for her, and so am I." Dexter admitted, he could make out Raven's lips forming the words; "peacefully" and "we do not want war" to which his brother nodded understandingly but looked frustrated as he spoke back to her.

Sparrow glanced at Dexter. "This about that secret project she has the two of you helping her out with?"

"We want to help her out more, know the full story about what's going on but she's genuinely terrified that something bad might happen to us if we know too much." Dexter crossed his arms when Raven allowed Daring to roll up her sleeve so that he could survey the intricate designs underneath.

"Well to be fair it seems like she's already making some heavy duty deals if all of those tats have anything to say. I'm sure that if it came down to it she'd go right to you guys for help, but for the moment it seems like she's getting all of her ducks in a row." Sparrow observed, his mind pulling up the memory of him overhearing Raven and those two Wonderlandian girls talking about the witch marrying Faybelle, the fairy was many things but she did at least take care of the things and people that were hers.

"But at what cost?" Dexter clenched his jaw. "A deal that serious does not come without a price. Daring had talked about how some old biddies in the High Council wanted her to give up her right to her throne and her title just because her mother had done all those bad things. And the information we've found thus far on that project she's having us do… it's really not looking good."

Dexter played with his coffee cup distractedly. "I'd feel better if she would just let us protect her more, all this secrecy and knowing that there is something dangerous going on worries me, and it's scaring Daring, he may not show it well but he cares about Raven like she's… a long-distance sister, not being able to protect her or make everything better so that her life can go back to normal is killing him. She says that she's doing what is necessary, and that we're probably going to throw a fit when we do find out everything, but to be honest I'd at least rather know exactly what's going on rather than worry like this."

Sparrow considered the other for a moment. "Have you ever told her how you guys feel?" He asked.

Dexter looked down. "Not really, Daring promised her that we'd do this no questions asked and he's being serious about that… he's just showing his worry in other ways."

Sparrow spared a sidelong glance outside where Daring had enveloped the witch in a crushing bear hug.

"I think that it's not that she doesn't trust you, it's just that she doesn't know how to do it properly." Sparrow mused. "I mean think about it; before that whole Legacy Day debacle Raven had, like one person in the entire school to count on, It's more than obvious to a lot of us Rebels that our fearless leader had it rough growing up and that's why there's this unspoken rule going around to not expect her to become like our all knowing queen or anything, even Hunter's pet squirrel seems to sense that she's way too broken inside for us to treat her the same way you guys treat Apple."

Dexter shook his head. "What are you talking about? Raven is one of the most level-headed people I know, she's not broken."

"Name a time when she has ever asked someone aside from Maddie for help on a personal matter, or a time where she was the one to arrange a gathering of Rebels like Apple arranges those parties for you Royals." Sparrow dared. "Aside from Maddie, you are one of her closest friends, tell me if she has ever come to you after she's had a bad day and needed someone to talk to."

"Um…" Dexter furrowed his brow, searching his brain for something. "I'm sure that there had to be some time…?"

"What I'm saying is that before Legacy Day she only had one friend, everybody else was either terrified of her or they were ridiculed for even daring to speak to her, and that's not even the half of it, remember in elementary school? After her mom went berserk some kids would throw things at her and call her names and the adults didn't do anything about it, and I'd bet my guitar that was the reason her dad homeschooled her in Junior High. I'm not saying that she's not levelheaded; I'm saying that since she's been a kid she had had virtually no one to rely on, she's like the textbook definition of self-dependent, she's just not used to relying on anybody or having more than a few people really get to know her." Sparrow shrugged.

At Dexter's baffled look the musician sighed. "It's not in her programing to tell people the whole truth, she may trust you guys but her learned data has been so corrupted by people hurting her if she strayed too close that she's had to set up firewalls and filters to keep her hard drive safe from hackers sending in viruses designed to burn her from the inside out."

"Oh!" Dexter's eyes lit up in understanding. "So if Daring and I are going to get her to tell us the whole truth then we need to convince her that she's got nothing to fear from speaking about it and that it would be in her best interests to let us help her more!"

"Bingo." Sparrow nodded while pointing to the other.

XXX

"You're leaving already?" Apple whined sleepily early Saturday morning after Raven tried to quietly sneak out of the bathroom after her shower. "It's two in the morning, is it really necessary for you to be up this early?"

"The place I'm going to is several hours ahead of us." Raven whispered, picking up her duffel bag and walking over to the princess's bed. Her eyes glowed an eerie yellow as the low light from the moon reflected against the inborn mirror-like organic mechanisms in the witch's eyes that helped her see in the dark. "I will be starting business matters the moment I get there which is why I'm rushing so early in the morning…" She glances at the clock on Apple's bedside table. "I'm sorry if I'm disturbing you, I tried to be quiet."

In response Apple stretched out her arms and hugged the witch around the waist. "I'm not disturbed, I'm worried! Every time you talk about your secret business it sounds like your waiting for a death knell or something."

Raven winced, one glowing eye narrowing in guilt. "I'll try to stop doing that. It's just that a lot of changes will be happening and I'm wary of what the outcomes may be is all. On one hand I'm excited that all the change that I'm going through appears to be the good kind for both me and my people… on the other hand there will be some major controversy amongst the people closest to me surrounding the decisions that I have made, and that is the thing that I am not looking forward to."

"Is that your way of saying that I'm probably not going to like whatever it is that you are doing?" Apple asked pursing her lips.

"Kinda, yeah." Raven nodded, the lights of her eyes bobbing up and down. "But at least I'm giving you fair warning this time, so when you do find out you will at least be somewhat prepared to speak your mind to me about the unorthodox and last minute decisions that I'm making."

"Golly gee, that makes me feel so much better." Apple grumbled sarcastically.

Raven bent down to kiss Apple's temple. "I'll see you Sunday night." The witch promised.

"Show me the new henna stuff you'll be getting?" Apple requested moving her arms around the witch's shoulders and trapping the other to her. "You may have to keep me in the dark about a lot of things but please at least show me the visual damage… Or in this case the ritualistic tattoos for a super secret deal that your conducting for your kingdom."

"I suppose it's the least I could do." Raven allowed, pulling back.

"What are you wearing?" Apple mumbled her hands patting the witch down.

"A ceremonial dress…" Raven answered cryptically, her glowing eyes moving back and forth shiftily.

"I wanna see." Apple declared, her hand reaching for the bedside lamp before Raven had a chance to react.

"That's got to be the most pink I've ever seen you wear." Apple said after a moment of shocked silence. "That's also the most skin I've ever seen you show off."

"They're very into symbolism where I'm going." Raven shrugged.

"Well you look gorgeous in my humble opinion, that style of dress suits you, so do the colors." The princess assured.

Raven couldn't help but smile at the compliment. "It's functional too, the temperatures are very warm where I'm going."

"So this is the traditional dress of wherever it is your going?" Apple asked innocently batting her eyes.

"Kind of…" Raven shrugged. "It didn't exactly originate there but it did get adopted as one of the many fashions when immigrants started moving in."

"Oh?" Apple said mentally filing the barest hints of information she was getting away for later for when she met up with Blondie and the two of them commenced their continuing research into what Raven might be doing. "So this place is like a giant melting pot of cultures huh."

"For witches, fairies, wizards, and mages mostly." Raven shrugged looking at Apple smugly. "Which just about describes dozens and dozens of realms and kingdoms involving those main groups."

"Can't you give me _something_ to work with?" The princess demanded with a pout.

"That would defeat the whole purpose of this all being a secret. Raven shrugged apologetically.

"It's those kind of responses that make me worried." Apple sat up and glared at Raven.

"You'll find out about most of it very soon, I promise." Raven spoke before Apple could open her mouth to reprimand the witch. "But seriously, I'm not keeping you out of the loop for no good reason… Just please stretch your patience a little bit further? And hopefully I'll be able to explain everything to you before somebody figures it all out and starts sounding the alarms."

"And when will you be able to tell me?" Apple demanded unhappily.

"Definitely sometime after I get my hands done… and I get permission from the other people in this. And that is working under the assumption that you won't find out while I'm gone… because I get the feeling that several students have already figured at least some of it out…" Raven bit her lip as she thought about Cupid and Mira, who both just so happened to work rather closely to the best snoop in school.

Apple mulled over the witch's proposal for several moments before nodding. "We are going to have that talk sooooon after you get back." The princess gave her ultimatum. "Have a safe trip."

XXX

"That clingy, preppy little-." Faybelle snarled.

"Like I told you before; she's days away from figuring it out on her own." Raven sighed laying on her stomach on a massaging table in the bathing chamber as her back was done up with henna designs. "I can stall her for as long as I can but in the end me being the one to tell her about our deal and the reasons behind it might help keep her from completely freaking out."

"Keyword in that being "might" lovely bride of mine." Faybelle pointed out as she began to pace. "Apple White is an unpredictable factor, she could start shrieking confidential information to the heavens and anybody who will listen just as easily as she could use that big brain of hers to smartly keep her mouth shut! She, more than anybody, has the potential of putting you in danger and starting a war if she were to chatter to the wrong ears!"

"I didn't say that we tell her everything." Raven reasoned. "I was very frank with her when I told her that this business did not just involve me, but my kingdom too. If I remind her of this and I tell her that the fate of millions of lives are on the line, she _will_ _back off_ , no matter how angry she gets."

"Are you going to tell her about what the Charming brothers are looking into for you too?" Faybelle demanded heatedly.

"No." Raven gestured her hand in the negative. "Because then she could guilt Daring or Dexter into giving her information before they do me and if what we've pulled so far is anything to go by she _will_ flip and be halfway prepared to send the White family's armies out or something equally bold when what we are trying to do is neutralize this issue without involving war. Ancestors know that Daring has offered to do just that with his kingdom's armies."

Reluctantly Faybelle cracked a smirk. "Heh, and here I thought that prince in-love-with-himself was just another pretty face."

"How did you mom react to the evidence I gave you to give to her while my front was being done?" Raven moved on to a different subject, clenching her stomach muscles and feeling the dried henna under her. "You were gone for hours."

Faybelle studied her nails. "Well… while your grandmothers were cursing in ways I have never heard before, and most of my family was cackling at that video of that prime minister, your father made a few calls and my mother made a few calls… suffice to say the crimes we had discovered had several law enforcement agencies very interested in several lords residing in some small Ever After kingdoms."

Raven breathed out a sigh of relief.

"And my mom decided that it would be in everybody's best interest if we did two ceremonies again this time around, tomorrow you'll be getting your hands done up and then rushed to the alter again." Faybelle finished watching the witch intently.

"Hmmm… makes sense…" Raven hummed as the nymph in charge of putting designs on her back reached her shoulders. "I'll have to hand that box to Grandmother quickly before we retire for the night."

"Was it wise to leave such a box under the protection of Kitty?" Faybelle asked. "Even if Maddie is there…"

"Kitty has met my grandmother. Kitty had gotten too curious once and popped in on both of my grandmothers talking about past flings. Kitty has stayed out of my grandmother's rooms unless she had an escort with her ever since." Raven rolled her eyes.

"Here you have such an open family and you somehow end up the innocent little maiden." Faybelle sighed despairingly. "You know that we are married right? The feud between our families is over and that " _prince cosmetics and potions line_ " you have sold to the O' Hairs along with the title transfer, and all the trade deals you've brought us has made up for any lingering scores you needed to settle with us… and I would not be opposed to having such a pretty little witch in my bed…"

"I'm not comfortable using you as a rebound." Raven blushed bright red. "And besides… I… barely have enough privacy to do that kind of thing to myself at the dorms; I haven't a clue as to how to be a good lover since I haven't… had the time to properly explore myself…"

"Don't you and Apple have a private bathroom? …Like the rest of the dorms do?" Faybelle leaned down to look Raven in the eye her eyes dancing in amusement.

Raven scowled. "It takes a while for Apple to get ready in the mornings and evenings, and she often returns to the dorm to freshen up when we have time after class or on the weekend. So she's set up one of those decorative privacy screens around the bath so that I can soak in the tub and have some privacy while she comes in and out to do her thing. If I have to go to the bathroom I'm allowed to lock the door but I have to be quick about it."

"Normally I'd have a taunt to that but… damn that's just way too sad, ever consider… I don't know, maybe standing up for yourself?" The fairy raised a brow. "Seriously you are so brave in most situations but when it comes to that girl-"

"She has to knock before entering, she has to ask if I want to talk to her or not, she is only allowed to lock me out if she has to go but she also has to be quick about it, and if I'm already in the tub she has to buck up and go anyway, all of her supplies must stay on her side of the room and out of the bath tub and shower, and she has to always ask for permission before borrowing the bath toys I bought to amuse myself with." Raven listed out. "I made sure she signed an unofficial term agreement to all of this and I framed it to hang up by the light switch. I did not come out of that one without demanding some things too."

"Well that's good." Faybelle said a leer forming on her face. "Though if you ever need a bit more… privacy you are always welcome to take a bath in my dorm… toys and all."

The witch blushed and bit her lip. "Why is it I suspect that if I did agree to that, I wouldn't be exactly alone in the room?"

"I can be really quiet." Faybelle grinned. "And besides, I'm a fairy, we're kinda famous for using rebounds to our advantage."

The witch blinked in confusion at the other's choice of words.

"Just think about it." Faybelle proposed standing back up. "I know that you are still hung up on Apple and that Apple keeps saying that there is this maiden in the school who has a crush on you, and that could be your ticket into an actual healthy relationship, but are you really willing to wait that long for a human to make up their minds?"

"No." Raven said bluntly. "But I'm more willing to wait just a bit longer until after the up coming mess with everybody finding out about our deal has subsided… and finding out whether or not I'll have to transfer to Hathor Academy since we are breaking one of the school rules."

Faybelle raised her brows. "You're volunteering to transfer if people find out about the marriage? So that I can stay?"

"As of today you will have both titles, it only makes sense… and besides I'm not sure that I'll be able to handle the fallout of all of this at a school like Ever After… even if it was for my kingdom." Raven murmured sullenly.

XXX

"Hey Cerise have you seen-… um… what are you doing?" Cedar asked her roommate as she walked into their dorm.

"Yoga?" Cerise replied innocently.

"Why are you doing yoga on your bed and in your underwear?" Cedar tilted her head to the side in confusion.

"It's more comfortable this way?" The hooded girl grinned nervously showing off her long sharp teeth. "What were you going to ask me about?"

"Oh I was just wondering if you knew where my book on tribal tattoos and artworks went. Blondie has asked me if she could borrow it." Cedar said, seemingly unconcerned by her roommate's strange behavior.

"I think you used it for reference in your latest painting, let me get it for you." Cerise offered, blurring off her bed and reappearing in front of Cedar with book in hand.

"Thanks?" Cedar took the book while casting Cerise a suspicious look. "Well I'll be heading out now." The wooden girl announced before leaving the room.

"That was close!" Briar hissed popping up from under Cerise's bed, clutching Cerise's dress to her half naked frame.

"We've gotta find a place that's more private." Cerise sighed. "I mean even though I'm sure that Cedar would understand, well for one she _can't_ keep a secret, and for another she's… super innocent. Like seriously, her body as it is currently doesn't really allow for a lot of the same emotions and hormones that the rest of us have."

"And Ashlynn's like a virginal goddess! She's really set on the whole _after marriage_ thing for herself and thinks that humans in high school are way too young for anything more than light kissing! She'll put a chastity belt on me if she were to walk in and find out I swear!" Briar shivered and not because she was cold.

"Forest isn't too good, one of the pack or my mom might happen on us or our scent… I really don't want to have to explain this part of my private life to them…" Cerise grimaced.

"So what? We figure out a way to be more sneaky?" Briar seemed to ask the universe at large.

"Or figure out a way of being quicker." Cerise grumbled.

XXX

"You know, I'm starting to like this place, lots of high sunny spots to take a nap on." Kitty stretched her arms above her head as they walked back to the palace from the temple.

"Your feelings are shared by all of the cats and reptiles in the area. And most likely everyone in that temple appreciated having the ability to doze while that chanting droned on and on." Charlotte drawled before yawning. "I'm all set for a nap."

"As am I." Faybelle agreed, she had her arm around Raven's waist and was rubbing circles into the exposed newly decorated skin of the witch's side.

"I have to give that box to my grandmother first and then I'll join you." Raven hummed sleepily, accepting said box from Maddie when the girl summoned it out of her hat.

Raven looked around for her grandmother, eventually spotting the woman sitting under a tree with tiny blue glowing flowers littered along its branches.

"Grandmother." Raven called breaking away from Faybelle's hold as she approached, leaving the fairy to wait a discreet distance away. "I have the box you asked me to retrieve."

Elenore smiled teasingly at her granddaughter as she took the offered object. "Judging by your calm outward appearance I gather that you didn't open it?"

"There are things about your private life that I'd prefer being in the dark about." Raven stated severely, shuttering at the notion of what those love letters contained, making Elenore laugh in delight.

"Not even to sate your curiosity of who your grandfather is?" The woman asked once she had calmed down. "You may say that you don't care but I know that you are at least curious."

Raven shook her head. "There is far too much for me to worry about right now, after this is all over maybe I will seek out my grandfather, but right now I must not lose focus."

Elenore smiled sadly. "That seems to be a trait that all Queen witches seem to share; we put focus and practicality over our own emotions."

"And that's a bad thing?" Raven asked, blinking worriedly at her grandmother.

"It is what has kept us alive since the bad old days." Elenore sighed. "Though sometimes our decisions to do the right thing may haunt us for years afterwards."

"Did you ever wish that you had told my grandfather the truth?" The younger asked, though she already suspected the answer.

"Yes." Elenore confessed without shame. "My decision to not tell him might have been the right one… that still does not excuse the fact that he did, and still does deserve to know the truth. But as you well know, our situation has not been at all simple and for years we have not had the luxury to follow our own emotions completely in our decisions in life. Actually I think that you starting your little rebellion against becoming the Evil Queen was the first time in a while that one of us had managed to both follow the heart and do something that benefited our lands."

Elenore smiled approvingly at Raven. "You look just as lovely with your hair short as it was long." The elder observed reaching up to briefly run her fingers through the younger's chin-length hair.

"Personal business aside I'd like to ask you about the two young boys who helped you gather this much intelligence against our enemies. Would you say that they are trustworthy?" Elenore spoke retreating her hand and adopting a more professional air.

"Incredibly so." Raven swore. "They've been so nice about helping us out like this… though they are growing worried. Daring Charming on more than one occasion has offered to loan out his kingdom's armed troops to aid us if needed. I told him that if it came down to that we would take him up on that offer."

"If things turn sour we certainly could need the help." Elenore mused. "Raven, would you feel comfortable telling them more about what is going on? You did say in our correspondence that several individuals at your school are very close to figuring out the nature of your bridal tattoos, and your allies might be even safer if they knew what was going on and how to spot and avoid trouble."

"I'll text them to ask if they would meet with me when I get back." Raven promised. "Grandmother… there is one more person who I'd like to inform about everything." Raven shifted nervously. "Apple White my roommate has been slowly going out of her mind with worry and… I am getting tired of hiding such important information from her… I'm not sure if she'll be able to understand the cultural aspects completely but I'd rather tell her my reasoning's and let her yell at me for my rash decisions than let her go grey from the worry in the secrecy."

"Is this the princess whom you have been trying to get over being in love with?" Elenore leaned forward in her wheelchair, her smile knowing.

The younger's blush was all the answer that was needed.

"If you feel as though you can trust her without getting us all killed then I have no problems with it. And besides what better way to see how she is able to stand up against the insanity that has followed our family around for close to four generations." Elenore huffed. "If she can't deal with it then you might just be able to move on right away, however if she can handle it, then things get more complicated but at least you know that you have a friend that you can trust."

Raven grinned, feeling a little better. "My thanks grandmother."

"And thank you child, for going to the trouble of retrieving this little box of memories from that old secret hiding place. I'm surprised that it was still there after all these years." Elenore smirked soberly.

"Actually it turned out that it wasn't in your hiding place, I ran into the Headmaster at your and grandfather's old spot and apparently he had been the one to find the box years ago." Raven shrugged. "For some reason he had held onto them and he was actually very nice about giving them to me to return to you."

Elenore's eyes widened as her breath hitched. "O-oh my." The woman coughed. "How… kind of him to go to the trouble."

"Yeah, his face went really red when I asked him if he had read those letters." Raven snickered. "But in all honesty the Headmaster is a nice guy under all that gruffness and traditional values."

"Oh?" Elenore tilted her head as she narrowed her eyes at the younger. "How so? Would you say that he has treated you well? He has never… been too hard on you for your bloodline or for your cause has he?"

"More annoying than anything else." Raven rolled her eyes. "Yeah, he did try his hand at some failed underhanded tricks to get me to sign the Book, but he's only done that when I somehow manage to freak him out with facts about the cold terrible truth about my life and he becomes worried about me. He used to organize these little get-togethers between me and the other maidens to try to encourage me that being a fairytale villain wasn't such a bad thing, the first few times it just made me irritated but after a while I started feeling sorry for him and those pitifully hopeful looks he kept sending my way until I did something minorly devious just to make him feel better. Though he's stopped trying that in the past several weeks. But overall he's a good person, a bit weird, but one of the few that seems to have more of a sense of pride for our family's former title than I ever could."

"Hmmm." Elenore placed her fingers to her bottom lip contemplatively. "Thank you granddaughter you have been most helpful."

XXX

Elenore did not know what she had been expecting when she had opened the box later that night in her assigned room, but the freshly white envelope startled her slightly. It contrasted starkly with the yellowing aged and worn ones.

Her fingers move of their own accord as they deftly worked the letter open in delicate slow movements, her eyes skimming over the hastily written scrawl a few times before the information sinks fully into her brain.

The tone of his writing seemed apologetic and sorrowful, though there were hints of anger and betrayal in more than a few sentences.

He had found out about her daughter being his daughter as well, and that Raven was their granddaughter. He was just as hurt that she had never told him, as he felt guilty for all the trouble that he had caused her, he held much regret for many choices that he made over the years.

And he said that he still loved her, never was able to get over her.

Elenore breathed in a breath, then another, and then one more before the air was able to reach her lungs.

What was she to do? Do the logical thing and ignore this? Or do the right thing and wright back?

Elenore debated over the pros and cons for what could have been hours (she wasn't exactly keeping track) before finally flicking her wrist to summon a pad of paper and a quill pen to float in front of her.

XXX

Clawstorm found herself in a dilemma.

Since about the third day that she had gone back to school she had noticed that Humphrey was in possession of the folder containing the encrypted documents that would prove her innocence and true motivations to most of the crimes she had been charged with over the years.

She had known ever since she discovered that the real Book had been discovered and messed with that somebody had those documents as well, the question was whether or not they cared enough to decipher them.

She didn't know how to feel about that; on one hand it would be nice for her mother and daughter to know that she wasn't a genocidal goon, but on the other hand a great deal of the peace that ensued after she had been locked away was due to the fact that her land's enemies became too terrified of her, and in extension her family as a whole to want to do anything seriously sinister to them or their home. If they found out that she wasn't actually all that evil they could take it as a sign of weakness.

Caught in her indecision she let Humphrey continue to scratch his head over- yet methodically and determinately begin to slowly decipher the main parts of the documents for a while, both hoping that he figured it out and dreading the day he did.

Her indecision problem was forcibly solved for her the day the foreign news articles about how several of her land's enemies had been arrested or were under suspicion for various crimes filled her designated computer monitor while she was doing work at the News Club.

Like an animal that could see that it was about to become cornered Clawstorm knew that her enemies might lash out in response to this, it was the beginning of more trouble.

Mira began to hum quietly, discreetly, eventually braving to sing a few words, then a few more, until her soft voice carried around the quiet room for at least Humphrey to hear.

"Twinkle, twinkle little star, how I wonder _who_ you are…"

"Eureka!" Humphrey cheered his hands flying over his notes and the documents as the code suddenly began working itself out in front of him.

Mira schooled her features and exchanged confused glances with the rest of the club as the blond boy continued to work.

"Mira you're brilliant! You've solved the key to the code!" Humphrey declared surprising the witch when he practically flew over to give her a hug and kiss her cheek before gathering his things and dashing out of the room in a whirl of excited humming to the tune of an old children's song.

"Um, thank you?" Mira called after the boy's retreating form. "Does anybody know what that was all about?" She asked the rest of the room innocently.


	24. Chapter 24

"Lizzie, Humphrey, what's so important that you need to drag me along? Raven will be back any minute!" Apple complained as she was dragged into the News Club room.

"It's important because it involves raven." Lizzie defended pointing to the computer screen that Humphrey had turned on and pulled up several documents.

Apple spent a moment reading over what was on the screen her expression morphing into one of absolute bewilderment.

"Impossible." Apple shook her head. "I mean… she's _evil._ She… but everyone saw… this _can't_ be right can it?"

"So far all of the sources and evidence that I've been able to find online have checked out." Humphrey informed. "And Lizzie called her mom who did some research of her own and all of those checked out too."

"Where did you get this information?" Apple demanded after a moment of stunned silence.

"Briar found a secret compartment in her dorm with a folder of coded documents inside, as it turned out her dorm used to be the Evil Queen's when she attended school here." Lizzie spoke her tone serious. "Humphrey hasn't translated all of those documents yet but so far all of this evidence is pretty damning."

Apple silently deliberated before coming to a decision. "How much more needs to be decoded?"

Humphrey adjusted his glasses. "W-well whoever hid these papers were pretty thorough about including as much credible information as possible to help clear her name, no doubt in case of any problems that might arise in the course of this secret plan that she keeps referencing to in her notes. There's still dozens of pages to go through."

"I'll help you translate a few more, in an hour or two all three of us need to head back to my dorm, Raven should have had enough time to settle in by then and she needs to know as much information that we can give her." The princess declared in determination.

"I'll help too." Lizzie volunteered. "It worries me that there was something out there so terrifying that Raven's mother was willing to turn herself into the worst Evil Queen in history and fool all of those powerful realms just to scare them away, and something tells me that Raven knows exactly what that thing is."

"You're right she does know." Apple confessed. "But she's got her mind set on not telling anybody or asking for help from most of her friends, you know how she is when she's in one of her stubborn moods. Hopefully she'll be mollified by all of this enough to tell me something."

XXX

"A letter from Elenore Queen to my brother?" Giles asked Maddie when the girl handed him an envelope. Maddie had apparently returned with the rest of Raven Queen's secret entourage from the secret trip that they had all taken for business reasons.

"She said that she wanted to apologize for causing any trouble with those old love letters she and Raven's grandfather had written to each other." Maddie hummed as she watched a butterfly flutter in the air out of the corner of her eye.

"How was your trip Madeline?" Giles asked. "Raven did not have to get more piercings I hope."

"The time difference makes inside clock all wonky-woo but the land is pretty and Raven only got more Henna to mark her dedication to the contract." Maddie grinned up at him. "Nothing to worry about. She's doing fine and she's got people who she can count on."

"I'm glad to hear that." Giles smiled back.

XXX

"Thank you for meeting with me on such short notice." Raven stood awkwardly in the middle of Daring and Dexter's room, hugging her mirrorpad to her chest as she met gazes with the two boys in question.

"You cut your hair short…" Was the first thing out of Dexter's mouth. "And what are you wearing? It's pink!"

Raven looked down to her bridal outfit, she didn't have time to do more than put on a sleeveless white and pink blouse that covered her midsection and matched the rest of her outfit that she wore for the marriage ceremony, her hands were still caked with flaking bits of dried henna, absently she picked away at a few designs revealing the newly stained skin underneath.

"Y-yes." Raven cleared her throat. "This outfit is actually part of what I'm here to talk to you about. Um, so I talked to some people and they agreed that I can inform you two as to what's going on with my kingdom and what I've made you apart of."

"Does this include the reason why those lords that were just arrested had a recipe for a super soldier potion hidden on a flower website?" Daring crossed his arms, one well-groomed brow raised.

Raven sighed. "Your suspicions about them wanting to start a war are true, we don't know the exact reasons why or what long term goals that they have but we do know for a fact that they seem to want to wipe out my maternal kingdom, the sea kingdom that borders my land's waters, and… my paternal kingdom, they want to go after the kingdom my birth father rules over as well."

"Your birth father is a king?" Both Daring's eyebrows shot up in surprise, Dexter mirrored him.

"My father is the Good King actually." Raven coughed awkwardly.

"How in… any sort of reality would someone like the Good King want to marry your mother?" Dexter blurted out earning him a kick in the shin from Daring. "Ow! I'm just asking the obvious!"

"Oh they were never married." Raven assured nonchalantly, as if such facts were normal to everybody. "Before she went crazy, Mom told me that I had been conceived on a bet that went sideways."

"Side…ways…" Daring grimaced trying to shove unwanted thoughts out of his mind.

"Mom said that it's very important to make sure that you carry around protection that is not past it's expiration date and to always remember to take the morning after pill if there is any potential for accidental pregnancy." Raven shrugged.

"Wait… the Evil Queen was imprisoned when we were all like nine and ten. How old were you when she told you this?" Dexter demanded.

"Six?" Raven blinked at the two boys in confusion.

"Why don't you tell us why you're being covered head to toe in those tattoo things." Daring squinted his eyes shut as if pained, almost desperately changing the subject.

"Right." Raven nodded getting back on track. "That's actually a bit more complicated. You see… well you know how every kingdom where the monarchy has a family that has direct fairytale ancestry is protected under certain acts and laws?"

"Yes- oh." Dexter bit his lip as he came to a realization.

"What is it?" Daring asked his brother.

"Under universal law kingdoms in Ever After with fairytale origin cannot be conquered or conquer others… but the same does not apply to witch territories." Dexter informed. "Witch territories used to be protected just as equally but the current Headmaster's grandfather… did away with that."

"And because of all the blatant racism the other human kingdoms had towards witches at the time, no one stopped the laws from being repealed." Raven sighed. "Ever since then the Queen territories and our allies have been in a cold war with several smaller human kingdoms and the minor lords who neighbor us. We've been able to strive off war or any kind of serious damage towards us for a while now but unfortunately they have gotten some lucky hits against my family."

Daring stepped forward slightly looking the most serious that the witch had ever seen him. "Lucky hits?" He asked.

"The general public does not know this but… my great grandparents had been murdered by a man hoped up on dessenti drugs, he was suspected to have been hired by one of the lords but since the dosage of the drugs in his system had been too much the assassin's heart just gave out and his lungs stopped working as soon as the initial high was over. To keep war from erupting my grandmother kept the entire thing a secret, telling the populace that they had stumbled upon a long forgotten magical land trap dating back to the time where everybody was at war, only the prime leader of the sea kingdom was privy to what really happened so that he could ban dessenti from being placed into the hands of all human kingdoms."

Raven nervously scratched a little more dried paste off her hand. "Their failed attempt to start a war only led to even more failed attempts for several years until they had stopped completely and we had thought that they had lost interest… however several years ago they tried a more direct attack against us. I don't know if you've heard or remember hearing about that meteorite that crashed into the land neighboring the Queen territory several years ago… but apparently it wasn't just a freak accident and… it was apparently originally supposed to land on one of the Queen land's biggest cities."

"You're telling us that these people have figured out how to weaponize space rocks?" Dexter asked appalled.

Raven nodded grimly. "Our air radar system detected a strong stream of foreign magic directed at the atmosphere directly above us before the swamp troll sized meteorite had been detected, my grandmother had been hosting an unofficial meeting with some of our government's parliament members at the time and together they had been able to erect a series of intensely strong magical shields to bounce the rock away from our lands. While it did save hundreds if not thousands of lives it came at a cost; you see a shield that powerful takes up a lot of energy, so much so that my grandmother along with the parliament members had been knocked out and lost temporary use of their legs… and that's when my grandmother had been poisoned."

"They killed your grandmother too?" Daring winced sounding appalled.

"Thankfully no." Raven shook her head. "Remember those tiny cursed talismans that they had to strain from my blood? Well my grandmother had them too, only her curses were that she couldn't set foot on her homeland or be within a certain distance of me without becoming ill, in order to protect her lands though, my grandmother preformed some kind of spell that feeds magic to our new defense systems from her own body, the side effect of this is that she has lost the ability to use her legs very well… and in the weeks before this incident took place was when my mother had rescued me from a man… who had tried to kill me." The witch breathed.

Raven turned and lifted her blouse up just enough to show the old raised lines of healed skin on her side; she was pleased that the henna seemed to help mask the scars.

"I was drugged. Can't remember anything for the time since I had been kidnapped from elementary school to weeks later, long after mom poisoned everything. It wasn't until recently that we were able to get a name on the guy that did this, Kline, and for some reason he seemed to have it out for me in particular. Oddly enough mom's psychotic break actually made these people too terrified to go on with whatever plan they had, and they've reduced their attacks on us down to petty annoyances, but as a downside my family name had been dishonored and the High Council has refused to protect us if things get bad and since the Grand Coven isn't allowed to grant fairytale kingdoms protection… we were kind of in a bind."

"The Rebel cause makes a lot more sense now." Dexter hummed in the ensuing silence.

"Oh the High Council never wanted me to actually go through my fairytale, they wanted me to take a bite out of the poison apple before I even got near my princess. That had been their plan for me, however I had originally intended to go through with the story and then disappear, sneak away right after I poisoned Apple, change my appearance, lay low for a while, and then appear as the Good King's long lost daughter and rule over both of my kingdoms and convince everybody that I am a human. Then I figured out that I didn't have to sign the Book at all which opened up even more opportunities seeing as how if I never sign or take on the title of Evil Queen the Grand Coven can protect us… but…" Raven bit her lip when Daring's lips thinned and he crossed his arms.

"That would have taken far too long and the battle of keeping free of destiny was too much of a distraction from the real issues that need to be addressed… so when an opportunity came I… jumped at it." The witch fidgeted in her spot. "The deal is simple and convenient for both sides, I get my honor back, my lands get back their protection, we get a new powerful ally, trade agreements… they- _she_ only asked for one thing in return."

"I don't like how that sounds." Dexter turned to his brother. "Do you like how that sounds?"

"No I do not like how that sounds." Daring agreed, reaching out and gently grabbing the witch's arm to examine. "What is the nature of these tattoos Raven?"

"Have you guys ever heard of the practice of a family legally marrying a living relative off to a deceased one from another family to form a contract or merger between the two families? And no Daring I'm not referencing to any form of necrophilia." The witch added making the blond prince breathe out a sigh of relief. "Well my contract is legally of the same sort of deal; there is none of the same commitments expected from actual marriage and after the purpose of it is all done the vows can be dissolved with little difficulty… only my contract, or token marriage, is more of an exchange, my honor is restored in return for me giving up the title of Evil Queen to a different family."

Raven bit her lip as she watched the two boy's freeze at her words.

Daring shook his head. "Raven that is your birthright. You can't just give it up!"

The witch looked at the boy in the eye. "I have no choice. My people's lives depend on it. And it is already too late; as of this weekend enough of the rituals have been completed to transfer the title over, I only have two more rituals to go before my full honor is restored. As of this moment, my lands no longer abide by the laws of fairytales and we have both the protection of the Grand Coven, the various kingdoms that members of my extended family currently rule over, and the aid we need from my spouse's family and lands. It may not be the most ideal decision but it was necessary. My people are in danger and too many members of my family have died or are suffering because of all this. This has to end, at any cost necessary." Raven spoke, her eyes misting over, as she seemed to silently plead for the older boy to try to understand.

Daring's fingers absently started to pick away at the dried henna on the witch's hands; he looked shaken by the news. "Who?" He whispered hoarsely.

"Faybelle." Raven sighed.

The blonde's eyes widened comically. "Faybelle? As in _Faybelle Thorn_? You're marrying her? She's- she's crazy! Psychotic at times! Way too evil and- and she's just not a good choice as a spouse for you!"

"I'm sensing that you don't approve." Raven observed flatly.

"Of course I don't approve!" Daring screeched grasping onto the witch's shoulders and shaking her slightly. "Out of all the villains in the school you had to marry her? Why didn't you ask someone like Ginger? Ginger is both kind and sane! She'd be perfect for you since she'd be the least likely to pull some horrible prank or poison you!"

"Well for one, Ginger doesn't want her own title let alone mine, and her family doesn't have anywhere near the same amount of resources that the Thorn Clan does, their kingdom is massive by the way. And besides, Faybelle is honor-bound to treat me with the same respect that I treat her." Raven assured, nonplussed to the way the boy was gently shaking her (Apple was way more enthusiastic when she shook Raven so Daring's movements were like nothing).

"We're not saying that you can't take care of yourself Raven." Dexter placed a hand on his brother's shoulder, stilling the older boy. "It's just that we're concerned that… well that Faybelle might take advantage of you in some way."

Daring nodded his head, making Raven roll her eyes. "She's already getting my title and bragging rights that she has proof that I'm more of a maiden witch than a villain. How much more could she want?"

"You said that she's already gained the title and that you have two more rituals to go! What if she leaves you at the alter?" Daring stressed his eyes bugging out slightly.

"It would be dishonoring her family name if she tried, and even if she did all that I would have to do is find someone who is willing to be token married to me for as long as a day, after that the vows could be dissolved and we wouldn't have to worry about it anymore." Raven shrugged.

"Actually I was more concerned with Faybelle taking advantage of you in another way…" Dexter coughed embarrassed. "I don't mean to sound… um… like I'm labeling her based on race but Faybelle seems to be the type of person who would try to claim you as her wife… in a more intimate way…"

Daring shook his head in denial. "Oh come now Dexter, where are your thoughts going? We're in high school, there is no way that even Faybelle would stoop so low, right Raven?"

Raven winced looking away.

"Raven?" Daring squeaked his eyes getting very round.

XXX

"And that's about the gist of what's going on. Raven and I ended up agreeing that since she has to tell several key people in her life about all this then I had the right to do the same, and even though I normally don't care about these things; let's just say that I get the distinct impression that it would be far less stressful on my wife and I's life if we had several friends who were at least level headed and sane when they found out about us and what was going on with Raven's kingdom." Faybelle finished to her attentive audience.

There was a long moment of silence.

"Apple is going to kill you." Briar spoke at last. "Like seriously, she's going to draw blood when she finds out and hunts you down."

"If that happens then I'll either suspend her in the air with my magic until she tires herself out or call Raven over to subdue her own roommate." Faybelle rolled her eyes. "Seriously? That's the first thing you say?"

"Because it's true." Briar insisted. "Apple can get really scary when she wants to be."

Several people in the room nodded in agreement.

"Congratulations on landing Raven though." Tiffany piped up. "Lots of maidens who swing that way think that she's a total babe."

Faybelle smirked fondly (she had found that the little morbid girl had grown on her some in the weeks that Tiffany had befriended Duchess). "I haven't managed to snag her in a romantic capacity yet… but I am working on it. She has proven to be quite the capable wife, it would benefit me greatly to have a bride like her close by in more capacities than just as an ally."

"Oh my." Ginger covered her mouth in shock because that was a pretty dedicated statement coming from the fairy, because in Faybelle's language that essentially meant that she wanted Raven to become her chief wife or something of that sort.

"Oh for the love of- seriously Faybelle?" Sparrow grimaced. "Do you have any idea as to how much chaos you'd cause if you just went ahead and pounced Ever After's most talked about- wait. Never mind, you know exactly how much chaos it'll cause."

"Forget using magic and Raven as your shields, Apple is going to try to claw your face off while you sleep!" Briar griped. "Then drag Raven from your bed and lock her in a tower!"

"Feh, I say go for it, I can't believe that I'm saying this but it sounds like Raven might need someone to help her relax after all of that insanity, she's already been nothing but bearable ever since you got your claws into her so making her your bed buddy might just improve her personality even more." Duchess twirled a lock of her hair around her finger enjoying the silky smoothness of it (thanks in part to some new homemade superior quality hair care products that she had borrowed from Faybelle). "At least it'll help distract her from all the scandal this will cause once the school finds out."

Faybelle scratched her ear. "Yeah… about that, you see there's a rule in the school handbook that forbids any marriages to take place between two students of this school… I was just as happy to let it go and see if anybody was willing to challenge that a token marriage was the same as a real marriage and watch my mother eat them alive by pointing out that they were being culturally insensitive. But the other day Raven actually said that she was thinking about transferring to Hathor Witch Academy and learning skills better suited for a witch. You know since she is no longer a fairytale character."

"Apple is going to kill you~." Briar sang.

"I do admit that Ever After is lacking in the proper lessons that a witch should be able to take." Ginger hummed. "And it doesn't help that there is so much stigma surrounding our race here."

"I don't see many Rebels standing in the way of her leaving if things were put to them in those terms." Tiffany hummed. "A lot of people already think that she deserves a break from the Rebel vs. Royal drama."

"And Hathor Academy offers magical cooking classes that are rumored to be just off the page." Ginger sighed dreamily. " And I bet Raven wouldn't mind having some magic classes that weren't based on poisoning people."

"Ashlynn?" Faybelle peered at the mentioned princess in concern. "You've been frozen with that startled look on your face for a while now…"

"Am I the only one who is shocked that you and Raven got married?" The princess demanded whipping her head around wildly. "Why is everyone acting so calm about this?"

"It's a token marriage." Duchess snorted. "It's not like Faybelle is trying to get Raven pregnant or anything."

Sparrow released a long-suffering sigh. "Witch and fairy politics have always been odd and wonky, it's better to just take these things in stride instead of getting caught up on the details."

Briar placed a hand on Ashlynn's shoulder. "Trust me honey, a token marriage is not nearly as special as the real thing, so don't worry about it much okay?"

"And this whole thing about Faybelle wanting to take things further with Raven?" Ashlynn demanded.

"Well I gotta at least try to keep such a profitable asset around as long as I can don't I?" Faybelle shrugged while smiling innocently. "Having a closer emotional connection to someone as dedicated as Raven would be nothing but beneficial to me since she's turned out to have all the skills and qualities to make an excellent wife."

"So… are you saying that you have feelings for Raven…?" Ashlynn asked unsurely.

"Far too early for anything that serious." Faybelle scoffed. "However I have come to enjoy her company to a certain extent and I'd like to be in the position to take better care of her seeing as she is currently my territory. I certainly don't see many other rival suitors who are in the position to offer her with nearly as much decent stability as I can. She'll come around and see things my way, I'm sure of it."

Ashlynn exchanged a panicked look with Briar.

XXX

"If you two practically hit the roof at the news how is Apple going to react?" Raven grumbled as she walked back to her dorm with the Charming brothers flanking her on both sides. She had her arm hooked around Daring's elbow since the older boy had been nice enough to offer it to her.

"War breaks out between your wife and roommate?" Dexter predicted. "Apple's not going to like any of this one single bit."

Raven sighed. "So much for a few weeks of peace. Thanks by the way, for all the help you're giving me on this."

"We're glad that you came to us in the first place." Daring spoke placing his other hand over the witch's. "Though please consider my offer. If Faybelle treats you badly in any way, I can take her on and marry you if need be."

Raven smiled complacently. "I don't think that'll be necessary but thank you for the option anyway."

"Are you really going to transfer to Hathor Witch Academy?" Dexter asked.

"I just might have to, my kingdom is no longer a part of a fairytale so I'll need to take classes that involve normal everyday witch subjects, classes that Ever After does not offer." Raven informed. "And truthfully it is awfully tempting to escape a second colossal fallout with the entire school over my life choices."

"The Headmaster is going to have kittens when he hears about this." Dexter grimaced.

"I'm terrified that one of these days I'm going to accidently send him to his early grave." Raven mumbled miserably. "He gets so worked up every single time that it just can't be healthy for him."

"I'm sure that a grown man like the Headmaster can learn to eventually live with it, and if he can't then it's his fault not yours." Daring assured as he accepted the key that Raven gave him to unlock her dorm room door. "In the mean time get some rest and know that Dexter and I are on the case with this website thing alright? And may I say that you make a most radiant bride."

The witch chuckled. "Thanks again you two." Raven smiled at the boys as she took back her key and quietly closed the door behind her.

The first thing she did after greeting an ecstatic and chatty Nevermore in the hall was to make her way over to her full length mirror and look herself over. Taking off the blouse Raven stared at herself in her wedding dress, She never really had the chance to just stand around and simply look at herself while she was wearing the dress and all the jewelry. She admitted to herself that she'd never looked prettier, the henna tattoos adorning her skin just adding to the entire look as a whole, making her feel… special. She kind of felt like dancing, just for a little bit until Apple came back and she had to deal with the princess's questions.

"Hey Nevermore? Do you happen to remember how that one dance went? You know the one that dance tutor I once had taught me, you remember the lady who nearly made you fat with treats?" Raven cooed to her pet dragon.

"Querrrp!" Nevermore chirped.

XXX

"Raven are you in here?" Apple looked around the dorm room, spying the closed balcony doors and the silhouetted figure moving behind the white curtains. "Oh she must be dancing again, let me go get her."

"Rave-…" Apple froze when she opened one of the balcony doors.

The witch in question had her headphones on and music blasting in her ears and was too busy keeping an eye on Nevermore as the tiny dragon's snake-like body flew around her as she moved and twirled to the beat of the music, so she did not hear the quiet exclamations of her unintentional audience nor see them as they watched her dance for a stunned moment.

Apple snapped back into reality when she heard Lizzie make a low wolf whistle and Humphrey drop his mirror pad, the princess grabbing the fallen computer before grabbing the collars of her companions and dragging them brusquely out of the room.

"Fairytales…" Apple groaned, handing Humphrey back his mirrorpad and leaning back against her closed dorm door.

"Hey guys have you seen Ashlynn-… what happened? You guys all look beat red!" Hunter, who had been innocently looking for his girlfriend after Ashlynn had gotten a hext earlier from persons unknown and had to rush off, stared at the trio in perplexed confusion.

Mira walked up and stopped beside Hunter. "What's going on here?" The witch demanded.

"I think that I've just found myself a future harem wife." Lizzie murmured with a wolfish smirk that made the Huntsman incredibly uneasy.

"You will be doing no such thing!" Apple hissed, her teeth bared in aggression.

"Well if you're not going after that, then I definitely am." Lizzie sniffed nonplussed.

"That's the problem I want to go after that but I can't until I figure out what I should do about my destiny being a lie and whether or not I can offer Raven any kind of stability to start a relationship!" Apple spat, making Lizzie and Hunter raise their brows; Humphrey just stared at the blonde princess in surprise.

"Humphrey… why does your mirrorpad sport a photograph of my dau- _homeland's_ sovereign future lady monarch half naked and in that particular provocative pose?" Mira's voice came out slightly chilled as she looked over the blond boy's shoulder to his mirrorpad screen.

Raven had her arms held up over her head, her skirt and sash flying out in all directions, Nevermore was flying around the witch's bare middle, Raven's chest was pushed forward thanks to her arched back, her hip was swiveled off to one side, and her neck was bared in a rather seductive way.

Immediately everyone moved to look over said boy's shoulder as well.

"I'll pay you for a copy of that." Lizzie promised Humphrey.

"Oh so he's planning on selling this is he?" Mira's voice turned frosty, the witch crossing her arms.

"No!" a wide-eyed Humphrey cried out. "I swear she doesn't know that I accidentally took it!"

"Not the best way to defend yourself buddy." Hunter commented crossing his arms as well, he looked just as irritated as Mira.

Apple snatched the mirrorpad away from the stuttering blond boy. "He means that we walked in and accidentally got an eyeful of Raven doing one of her private dances that she does sometimes when she thinks that she is alone, Humphrey dropped the pad and it accidentally took a picture, and no one is selling this, in fact, I do believe that I'll remove this picture and give this back to him tomorrow." The princess proclaimed glaring at Lizzie for a second before opening her dorm door and slamming it closed behind her.

As an afterthought Apple locked the door as well. Just to be certain that no enthusiastic Wonderlandian tried to sneak back in.

"Just how long have all of you been watching?" Raven's slightly shrill voice floated into the princess's ears.

The witch's head swiveled between the balcony directly beside hers and the equally wide eyed flying Cupid who was hovering above the balcony Raven was standing in.

"Oooh I'd say that we've been here just long enough to enjoy the show." Briar drawled, a surprised Cerise and a stunned Ashlynn standing on either side of her. "Congratulations on another successful ritual in your contract by the way. You-know-who told us all about it so naturally you should expect us to come over in a few hours to discuss that."

"This is so embarrassing…" Raven covered her blushing face with her stained hands.

"Sorry about that… um, nice tattoos, and you look good in short hair." Cerise coughed awkwardly.

"You look as pretty as a bride." Cupid agreed. "Now I see the need for secrecy."

Raven massaged her temples with her fingers. "Yeah well we highly doubted that it would be a secret for much longer so we've sped up the time table so that my kingdom could be assured it's safety in political allies and legalities, but right now I need to go find Apple before she hears about all this from an uninformed source and gets all the wrong ideas and gets hurt feelings as a result."

"Then use this opportunity to explain away." Apple appeared on the balcony wrapping Raven up in a throw blanket and hugging the witch from behind. "Though preferably without an audience. Come along Nevermore, we are going back inside." The princess commanded as she began moving indoors, dragging the witch behind her.

"You do look pretty." Apple commented calmly after she closed the balcony doors, her eyes hidden in shadows. "I'd suggest that you start from the beginning, and please sit down, something tells me that you have much to say."

"That I do." Raven sighed. "But just… please keep in mind that I am mostly doing this for both the sake of my kingdom and my family…"


	25. Chapter 25

A/n: It's been four or so months of this and I've already got this much done…

I don't know whether to feel accomplished… or spooked…

XXX

"My mother isn't… evil?" Raven whispered, staring at the floor wide-eyed. "It was all… just a trick? One big act?"

"You married Faybelle." Apple stated in betrayal.

"…And so once again I'd like to point out that a token marriage does not hold the same meaning as a regular marriage. There is no love between Faybelle and I, it's just a symbolic contract that exchanges a title for return of a family's honor." Raven pointed out.

"Still why didn't you tell me-… never mind, I guess you did have good cause not to tell me but I'm still not happy about this. Like at all." Apple crossed her arms and sulked. "I am definitely not going through with my fairytale now."

Raven winced. "Please don't say that to Faybelle… she doesn't exactly know about you having second thoughts and I'd rather she not know that I kept that from her."

Apple smirked, satisfied by this news. "Don't worry Raven, when the time comes, Faybelle won't know what hit her." The princess stated cryptically. "At the very least you are finally free of the Evil Queen title, and you will be getting your honor back… though I still wish that you had told me about your kingdom's problems sooner."

Raven looked down guiltily to her swinging legs over the side of Apple's bed. "Actually… all this time I thought that you knew at least about the hostile lords, and about my grandmother being ill, seeing as how our enemy's actions have never been exactly publically civil towards us, and it is common knowledge that my grandmother had been poisoned, it wasn't until recently that I found out that you actually knew nothing at all about our predicament but by then I was already in a contract with Faybelle and we needed to keep all of this a secret until enough ceremonies had been completed so that no one could legally dispute us… and at the time you were still adamant about me becoming the Evil Queen so…" The witch shrugged.

"I should have been informed about your kingdom's issues by either my tutors back home or my parents." Apple stated her eyes narrowed dangerously. "None of this has changed that; you are just as a big part of my life now as you had been when you were my future villain! As the future queen to the biggest, most influential kingdom in Ever After I should have been informed at an early age about the politics and the history surrounding your family and kingdom… I've been lied to yet again, and this time it really did lead to a situation that is… less than ideal." The princess fumed.

Apple turned her determined gaze to the witch. "Mark my words Raven; if I had been properly informed about even a little bit of this back when we first met… if I had not been lied to about how a future Evil Queen was supposed to act towards me, I would have never made your life so difficult those first few months that we had become roommates. I would have still wanted you to sign the Book, but I would have wanted to try to talk to you about your worries, helped you in whatever way I could, I would have never had hurt your feelings so much that it got to the point where you literally could not trust me with the knowledge of this contract."

Raven stared at the girl sitting next to her. "I thought that you would be furious after I told you all of this."

"Oh, I am angry." Apple confessed. "But I'm not angry at you, you are just doing what is best for your kingdom and family, there is nothing wrong with a ruler doing what is needed for the sake your people's wellbeing. My former tutors and parents however… I am very angry with them right now I just… I don't even know how I'll be able to look at them after this!"

"I'm sure that they only did what they had thought was best." Raven attempted to comfort the other.

"Yes but who were they trying to benefit with keeping me in the dark? Because it certainly wasn't for my sake." Apple demanded darkly, her glare trained on the floor as she gripped the witch's hand in her own.

Soft snoring coming from behind the two girls caused the two to turn as one to see a tiny dragon sprawled on it's back on the apple red comforter with it's little feet sticking up comically in the air.

"I didn't think that our topic of conversation was that boring." Raven murmured as she surveyed her slumbering pet dragon.

"Of course she'll find death threats, political marriages, and espionage boring." Apple pointed out. "She's still too young to understand any of it."

"How am I going to break the news to her that she currently has three owners?" The witch wondered.

"Three?" Apple queried.

"Well she's just as bonded to you as she is to me, I'd think that at least qualifies you for co-parenting rights." Raven hummed in thought.

"You'll like me better than mean old Faybelle won't you Nevermore." Apple cooed laying back and playing with the dragon's feet with her fingertips.

"Apple it's not a competition." Raven chastised.

"The heck it isn't!" Apple argued back. "This one will roll over for anybody who gives her food, I don't want that Faybelle to make her all fat with bribe treats!"

Raven scratched her nose. "Actually Nevermore is pretty picky about people she considers part of her horde, she's a sociable sweetheart most of the time but she still gets nervous if we are gone too long or if she's left alone with a stranger for a long length of time. She'd miss you quite a bit if she weren't able to see you."

"Really." The princess perked up. "One point for me~."

"This isn't a competition." Raven chastised again.

"Of course it isn't! Because Nevermore already loves me!" The princess squealed lifting the still unconscious and snoring dragon and cradling the creature in her arms.

Raven rolled her eyes, her attention soon drawn to the mirrorpad still clutched in her hands, as the princess continued to coddle the drowsy dragon the witch surveyed the contents.

"Um Apple?" The witch held up the computer, the photograph of her dancing displayed on the screen.

Apple blushed. "I can explain that." She assured.

XXX

"Oy vey… would this be classified as ironic or just a joke that the gods are playing on us?" Clawstorm grumbled as she laid out in her true form in her private dorm bath (she had a single room so she didn't have to necessarily worry about disguising herself to a roommate but she still only consciously lifted the glamour over her body while in the bath just in case).

Apple White had a thing for her daughter. It had to be ironic; after all, the girl's mother wholly despised Clawstorm and while the women were still in high school Snow White did not mince words about what she would do if any witchling of Clawstorm's even got near her future child.

Apple White, as far as Clawstorm could gather, was a sweet, well-meaning child who strived to keep the people she cared about safe in the best ways that she knew how. Sure she was pretty annoying in the beginning with her obsession about everything being perfect for her destiny but Clawstorm knew that most of that had to do with some pretty twisted up stuff that her mother must have told her about how Evil Queens were supposed to act. Recently, the witch was pleased to note, the young princess seemed to have calmed down considerably and had cast off her need to fit a perfect ideal all the time, making the girl completely tolerable.

The exact opposite of her mother, sweet ancestors, what had Snow White been thinking telling her daughter that poisoning maidens on a regular basis was normal and right for future Evil Queens to do? Did she want to give her kid a complex?

Not that Clawstorm minded that Apple White had a thing for Raven, in fact a part of her actually approved, Apple was after all a good kid and she obviously cared deeply for Raven's wellbeing, as far a suitors went Apple White was a fairly decent option.

Snow White however… if she was anything like the way she had been in the past then… who knew. It was a toss up between whether the woman would risk her daughter's ire by treating Raven like she used to treat Clawstorm… or if Snow White would not mind it as much and just reserve her venomous remarks to only be directed towards Clawstorm's name.

Really what had been the problem with that woman?

Clawstorm inhaled deeply. That did not matter now, what did matter was how long it would take Humphrey to translate the files proving her innocence and whether or not the Queen of Hearts deemed it necessary to hunt down the fugitives that were trapped in her realm.

Clawstorm made a mental note to check into that after she finished helping Blondie with her show tomorrow, and her interview with Tiny the giant about the benefits of meditation and deep contemplation.

Reluctantly the witch was starting to enjoy herself in her second run at high school.

And there was nothing wrong with that, best to enjoy it all while it lasted Clawstorm figured, because having a good high school experience was helping her to get over all the messed up crap that she had to deal with in the past. Which was something that she was immensely grateful for.

XXX

"And you are certain that the documents you just sent me speak the truth?" Faybelle asked Raven through the split screen of her phone.

"It was enough to convince the Queen of Hearts and Lizzie." Raven whispered so as to not alert a sleeping Apple in the next room, the witch made herself comfortable by sitting on the edge of the bathtub. "It still doesn't excuse her for crimes of mass terror, but it does exonerate her from the attempted genocide charge."

"Awful lot of trouble to go to just to trap some key enemy players in some foreign realms." Kitty murmured frustrated.

"Actually according to my mother's notes, fake poisoning Wonderland and the other realms was a last minute ditch effort to both help her capture her enemies and instill fear in new ones." Raven sighed. "She knew that she would be captured eventually and she hoped that our enemy would have dissolved their little group after a while, and that would be when she confessed the whole truth and reversed the spell."

There was a brief silence on the other end.

"Your mom's magic would have to be freakishly powerful to pull that off last minute, you know that right?" Kitty asked for clarification.

Raven bit her lip. "When my grandmother was three she accidentally turned the leaves of a fifty acre forest blue, to this day nobody knows how she did it, and my great grandmother somehow managed to ground her ghost to this plane for two weeks after she had been brutally murdered so that she could help her daughter set everything up to help make our people believe that she and her consort had perished in a freak accident and spook the king and prince of the sea kingdom to stop trade of the dessenti plant to most outsiders… it is very hard to say no to a ghost apparently."

Another brief silence stretched on.

"And the reason why you guys didn't reduce the neighboring hostile kingdoms into giant holes in the ground would be…. why?" Kitty asked.

Raven shrugged. "While the Queen lands have taken issue to the lords of those kingdoms, the common people to those lands actually have great relations with us and our people, it is often that the common people to our neighboring kingdoms cause trouble for our enemies by either sabotaging them or organizing mass protests against them and their rule. We have encouraged this by sending handsome contributions in aid to nonprofit organizations that distribute items that they themselves can no longer grow in their barren soil and we provide full school scholarships to the children of the farmers and the small businesses who do business with us."

"Thus turning their own people against them." Faybelle smirked. "Might I say that you look highly attractive right now?"

"But what about that whole Sleeping Beauty incident? Didn't your mother wake her up ninety three years too early?" Maddie asked. "Is there a method behind that madness?"

"According to this it says that Sleeping Beauty used to date one of the Queen clan's enemies." Faybelle surveyed her mirrorpad. "He got jealous that she would eventually wind up with somebody else so he had set out to actually kill her. Raven's mother got word of his plan and had little choice in the end but to awaken Sleeping Beauty and kill her ex-boyfriend out of self-defense when he tried to kill both women… Sleeping Beauty, being the bitch she tends to be, blamed Raven's mother for the attempted assassination and told my mother complete lies, starting the feud between the Thorn and The Queen clans, and thus effectively removing my mother as a potential ally to Raven's mother."

"Does that sound credible?" Raven asked.

"Unfortunately yes." Faybelle grumbled. "Sleeping Beauty… lets just say that the woman was never a very kind individual… We'll have to verify all of this of course."

"Yes we will." Raven agreed. "In the morning. I suddenly feel immensely exhausted."

XXX

"He's been different ever since he found out that the original Prince Charming digged people's corpses." Sparrow observed as he bit into his breakfast toast.

"He really has." Darling agreed and Dexter nodded.

"That's the sixth girl he's turned down today." One of the Merry Men murmured in awe.

"Should we be worried?" Sparrow asked.

"Only partly." Dexter figured. "While his holding off of dating all girls everywhere is a bit of a radical character change, and he has to see a therapist because his little adventure in the Book's memories left him completely traumatized… there has been some benefits to him acting so different than usual."

At Sparrow's confused look Dexter pointed his chin to where Daring came up to Briar, Cerise, and Raven as the three entered the cafeteria. Smiles lit up on the girl's faces as they greeted the boy and gestured for him to sit at their table.

"He never used to have close platonic friends who were girls… actually I don't think that he had many really close friends period." Dexter continued to explain. "Sure he may have hung out with a bunch of the other heroes but he never really got close to them. Or any of the girls that he's dated."

"It's true, the only people that he let get really close was us, his younger siblings, and it was still a rare day when we actually got to see any real emotion come out of him." Darling spoke around the straw of her morning smoothie.

"Huh." Was all that Sparrow could say on the matter.

"TIFANYYYYYYYYYYY!" A terrorized voice shrieked making half the cafeteria jump; outside the large windows the occupants of the table could see Edward being chased by a half turned honking and hissing Duchess Swan, the girl swirling a lasso of rope over her feathered head.

"Looks like someone tried to convince Duchess to take back her old destiny… again." Sparrow clicked his tongue in disapproval. "When will that boy ever learn?"

"Should we rescue him?" Dexter asked as he watched Edward dodge Duchess.

"Nah. I mean if we kept saving him every time he insulted either Duchess or Tiffany then how the hex is he supposed to learn that they don't want to conform to their old destinies?" Sparrow reasoned, pointing to Tiffany who had turned her nose up and away from Edward when the boy all but plastered himself to the window begging her to take her story back. "Granted he's taking a very long time to learn that lesson…"

The entire table winced once Duchess caught the boy.

"…On second thought we might have to stage an intervention." Sparrow winced yet again as they all watched as Edward ran around in circles with all of his arms tied around his back, and an enraged swan riding on his shoulders.

XXX

"What are your real intentions regarding Raven?" Apple demanded the moment Faybelle stepped out of her dorm Monday morning.

"And good morning to you too princess." Faybelle yawned tiredly. "I thought that things went well between you and my wife when she explained her situation to you?"

"I may agree that Raven is doing the most logical, smartest move with this deal she has with you, but that does not mean that I don't suspect that you have ulterior motives behind your ulterior motives." Apple spoke coldly. "Now tell me what it is that you really want with her."

"To claim her as mine, and to keep her as my bride." Faybelle admitted easily. "Raven has proven to be far more useful to me than as just a token wife, I would like to make her my main allied wife, or foreign chief wife as you humans are so fond of calling it, in both a companionable sense and in a far more intimate one if you can catch my drift." The fairy waggled her brows, her leering grin showing off her sharp teeth.

"You're in love with Raven?" Apple asked stunned.

"Hardly." Faybelle snorted rolling her eyes, honestly humans sometimes... "It's only been weeks since she ceased to be a threat in my eyes and we started this deal. Such strong feelings this early in the game would be far too much of a disadvantage for me."

"So you-… you're- you're just going to use her for your own personal gain?" Apple all but shrieked.

"But of course." Faybelle smiled serenely her slatted eyes like glittering black gems. "I am a hot-blooded fae after all, it is simply how my kind does things, a perfectly natural and healthy reaction to such a tantalizing maiden that has willingly landed herself as my territory."

"Not for long." Apple snarled viciously. "Once I tell Raven about this-"

"Raven already knows about my intentions towards her princess." Faybelle chuckled lightheartedly, leaning back against her closed dorm door. "Transparency is rather important for a married pair after all, and I have little need to worry about her freaking out as much as you are seeing as how Raven is a witch and therefore has been raised in a culture whose race often works and lives closely with mine. She's being kind by waiting until her personal pathetic romantic situation has made itself clear so that she doesn't use me as a rebound for getting over you, but sooner or later she very well may see things my way, after all it would only be to my benefit if she so decided to use me as a rebound. At least I know what I want and am not afraid to reach for it when I desire it, unlike a certain princess I know who is feeling a bit down about her fairytale being a lie."

"You…" Apple fumed stepping forward, her hands clenched threateningly into fists.

"Temper, temper, princess." Faybelle teased with a cheeky grin. "I'm just saying that perhaps Raven would prefer to occupy the bed of someone who wasn't so indecisive about what may be the right or wrong path to take in life. I know what is good for me, I know what will make me happy, and I find a certain level of enjoyment sharing that same satisfaction of being free enough to choose what I really want in life with others of the same mind. Now tell me princess; at this point in time can you really say that you are strong enough to finally choose between what would make you happy and your commitments to your fairytale lie? If not princess then I must solemnly inform you that you've ran out of time."

Apple stopped breathing for a moment. "How did you know that I was-?"

"Raven isn't the only one who can read faces and body language." Faybelle shrugged lightly, smiling serenely.

"You're wrong." Apple glared defiantly. "There is still some time left for me to decide, and I will not give up on Raven, she's too precious for me to ever give up on her!"

"My, my, and here I thought that I would be making you cry by the end of this conversation." Faybelle hummed in what sounded like pleased surprise. "Just keep in mind princess; I have full intentions of fulfilling both my roles as an Evil Fairy and an Evil Queen if I can't poison or curse either you or Briar then somebody else will have to do, and I have a very strong feeling that I will be poisoning and cursing somebody eventually."

"Whatever the future may hold, I'm not going to let you have Raven so easily." Apple vowed.

"Well good." Faybelle grinned in excited delight, the way her facial features showed off her teeth reminding Apple that despite initial appearances the fairy was far from human. "It would have been dreadfully boring if you did not present some sort of challenge for me to play with."

"I swear that there is something wrong with you." Apple grumbled tiredly.

XXX

"Those of you who can wield magic of their own, remember that learning academic magic isn't about channeling the power that you have been born with; it's about learning to take the magic that surrounds you every day and bending it using the natural resistance that your bodies have built up against it." Professor Maid Marion barked out as she surveyed her (troops) students. "Today I want you all to focus on forming the simple flash and bang spells that we reviewed yesterday. Line up according to last names and get going!"

Milton watched from just inside the tree line to the forest as Miss Queen (or should he try to silently refer to her as his granddaughter just to help the idea sink in?) drew magic out of the surrounding air and began shaping her spell. In the weeks since the new quarter started the girl had been adapting well to both academic magics and witch magics in her new (non-evil) classes.

He was proud of her for her achievements (not that she would appreciate it much but still).

"You've been stalling brother." Giles pointed out appearing behind Milton.

"It takes time to gather intel discreetly these days, and Clawstorm refuses to speak to me, she just stands there out in the distance and glares at me whenever I come in to try to talk to her, I swear she hasn't moved a muscle in weeks! I'm actually starting to get worried that she glared so hard at me one day and all of her muscles just froze up on her!" Milton bit his knuckle at the thought.

"Or… it could be that her dress makes it difficult for her to move around…" Giles supplied in the same tone one would use for talking to a dimwitted individual. "But our efforts in trying to figure out the full scope on the situation in the Queen realm is not what I was talking about."

"You read Elenore's letter too." Milton pouted sulkily.

"She told you that if it weren't for certain circumstances that could have put you in danger she would have gleefully wacked you over the head and told you that you were a father ages back when she was still pregnant with Clawstorm, and then proceeded to make your life hell for breaking her heart by dragging you into fatherhood whether you liked it or not!" Giles hissed out exasperatedly. "In Elenore-speak that practically screams that she doesn't completely hate you and if the situation were different she would have given you a chance to at least know and help raise your daughter! Doesn't it just _itch_ not knowing what kept Elenore, _the_ _Elenore Queen_ , so worried that she steered clear of something that she had actually wanted, mainly you taking responsibility for your kid?"

"She asked that I keep clear until the threat was gone." Milton looked down. "What am I supposed to do in the face of that?"

"Calculate just how many years leaving you out of the loop has worked out and how much time and potential the two of you lost together and say to heck with complying to that nonsense." Giles stated flatly making his brother look at him in surprise.

"You think that you're the only one who misses Elenore?" Giles demanded. "You may have been her lover brother, but she used to be my very best friend aside from you, the day that she left without a word my heart nearly shattered, and now suddenly I've got a niece and grandniece who are obviously in some kind of danger and I at least am not going to sit around and wait cluelessly as to whether or not things will get resolved in my lifetime."

Milton winced guiltily. "I remember how much you adored her, and how sad you were when she left and I wasn't helping matters any at the time…"

"But she's still somebody who I look up to, and I want to help protect her and my newly discovered nieces. And who knows maybe we'll all survive this and I get to actually be an uncle for the next several decades or so of my life, which would be fantastic considering that I have absolutely zero interest in reproducing and yet I would still get to enjoy the thrills of a thriving growing family… albeit a complicated one but really since when was life ever so cut and dry?" Giles put his hands on his hips.

"But our intelligence so far indicates that I might have unwittingly gave their enemies a helping hand! And have you forgotten that Clawstorm revealed that new guy tried to-… he tried to kill my granddaughter because she had formed a connection to the Book of Legends and he did not…" Milton gestured to Raven who was focusing on the ball of light forming between her henna decorated hands. "And speaking of Clawstorm, it was I, not us, that drove her to… whatever insanity that made her think that poisoning those worlds was a good idea!"

"Yeah and just how do you plan on making things better?" Giles demanded. "You can't amend for your mistakes by just sitting around hopelessly remembering the past Milton." The younger man chided.

Milton looked over to the training lawn, his granddaughter had spotted himself and his brother, Raven Queen peered at the two old men with furrowed brows of what he suspected to be suspicion.

Giles immediately grinned jovially and waved merrily at the witch, who awkwardly waved back.

"Do you suppose that she'd at least ever forgive me for what I've done?" Milton asked.

"You'll have to ask her for that answer brother, though with Raven I've observed that actions speak louder than words as far as she's concerned. The very best thing that you could do for her is to decide on an action to take in this instance and go for it… and also actually attempting to get in contact with Elenore so that the two of you can finally have that little chat face to face would help things greatly. It's obvious that Elenore may not be very happy with you but at least she doesn't seem mad enough to turn you into a gecko." Giles advised serenely.

"Gee brother, you have such a way with words…" Milton grumbled dryly, the image of him crawling around as a chubby little gecko would now surely haunt him until he got up the nerve to do what his brother advised and saw for himself what Elenore and the rest of her family would do to him.

XXX

"I swear that those two are up to something, if it were just Giles I wouldn't be nearly as concerned but my instincts tell me that something significant is going down because I keep catching glimpses of the Headmaster in my everyday life too and that is… both very creepy and very out of character." Raven ranted as she sliced up the ingredients needed for making sushi (the witch found it extremely odd that the village did not have a designated sushi bar by now because of the way most people ranted and raved about the exotic dish. Such establishments were very popular in her home kingdom and tended to be owned by the descendants of foreign witch merchants who had immigrated to the Queen lands to set up a permanent base where their families from across the sea could conduct business more easily with a permanent address to send messages and orders to and from).

Faybelle hummed resting her chin on the witch's shoulder and squeezing her arms wrapped around Raven's waist a little tighter. "They have probably deduced that something major is going on and they are worried about being left out in the dark about it."

"Maybe you should consider telling them what's going on." Apple, who was (glaring at Faybelle) leaning against the dorm kitchen counter, suggested. "I mean they're going to find out eventually and the Grimm brothers have a great deal of pull over all of Ever After, they'd make fantastic allies for you and I'd highly doubt that they would just leave you to the wolves on a serious matter such as this."

"That may be true." Raven admitted. "But the Headmaster all but flipped his lid when he first saw the nose piercing and my tattoos, if he were to find out about me giving up my title… if the news didn't end up killing him he might very well turn into more of a hindrance than a helping hand. You know how he's got a tin ear to any explanations that I give him about why I couldn't become the Evil Queen, and besides I would like to stay at Ever After High for as long as I can, when the Headmaster finds out the Thorn Clan will transfer me to Hathor Witch Academy faster than a reprimand can leave the Headmaster's mouth! Regardless of whether or not he and Giles decide to be useful to us."

"My family is keen on moving Raven to a school where they have more influence. Ever After High, although a home away from home and a safe place for all of us to prepare for our futures, is far too neutral for my mother and aunt's tastes. Hathor Academy not only owes the Thorn Clan a great debt for our generous contributions but Raven also has lots of extended family members currently enrolled on campus, many of whom are the future rulers to their own kingdoms and have expressed their concern over Raven's wellbeing, as well as the wellbeing of their ancestral home." Faybelle explained to the princess.

"It has been years since I've seen my cousins face to face." Raven murmured distractedly. "And my grandmother more or less works there too, but I'd still miss all of you guys and… well a lot of my friends here have become… sort-of family to me, I don't necessarily want to give that up so soon."

"I don't want that outcome either." Apple assured. "I'd miss you and Nevermore way too much! Though if and when that does happen tell whatever roommate that you may get to expect me to be coming over to stay for like, every weekend, because that's exactly what I'm going to do."

"She'd be placed in a special marriage suite or hut so that her spouse, which is me, can visit her whenever I want." Faybelle growled, her eyes narrowing at the princess.

"Then we will be seeing each other more often than either one of us would like." Apple shrugged. "According to the books I've read on fairy law, I am your princess now, therefore your property through the marriage you have with Raven, therefore as your co-owned property I have the right to be with Raven if I so chose."

"Why does it feel like I married two women instead of just one?" Raven asked the ceiling.

"Well, as a future queen to a witch realm you are allowed to marry more than one person. At least that's what the law books say, I'm still learning about all the fascinating loopholes that come with your society and the topic of matrimony Raven." Apple smirked smugly at Faybelle.

"Hoping to start a harem to keep Daring happy princess, for when you marry him?" Faybelle hissed.

"You two do realize that you'll have to reach some form of common ground eventually since the both of you are big parts of my life right?" Raven sighed irritably. "I am nowhere close to having the ability of my grandmother's talent of making magical clones of myself if I need to be in two places at the same time so that I can simply spend time with both of you at the same time in separate rooms."

"You lost me at learning how to clone yourself into several copies and all of your clones spending quality time with me." Faybelle breathed huskily into the witch's ear.

Raven valiantly did not let herself be distracted by the fairy. "Apple why are you blushing and why are you staring at me like that?" The witch asked the princess completely oblivious to Apple's unintentional mental image of several Ravens wearing the foreign wedding clothes that she had seen the witch wear yesterday and dancing around her.

For reasons that were difficult to grasp Apple had difficulty forming a coherent thought for some time after that.


	26. Chapter 26

A/n: I think that for a place like Ever After High there are some benefits and some complications that would come from going to a school filled with future rulers to kingdoms.

The benefits would of course be gaining future allies through friendships and learning to be more open minded with a vast array of cultures.

However some of the downsides I would think would be… what would happen if the people who used to bully you ruled a very large kingdom relatively close by on the map? And vise versa; what would happen if the person you used to bully had a kingdom that was close by and was also traditionally a very key ally in both trade and influence with other countries of the same culture?

Very awkward business meetings was the first thing that came to my mind, they might not like the other ruler(s) personally but both of their people benefit greatly from the two of them working together.

But in this story's case I had decided to give the Queen kingdom a parliament government that worked with the ruling royal family, a kind of mix of both a monarchy and a democracy, so technically Clawstorm wouldn't be required to deal with Snow White, her former bully, directly.

So that left me wondering what I was going to do with Snow White? I had based her on people I've observed in the past who bully others both because the other kids in their group are doing it and also because they are mad that this other person has a cooler life and future to look forward to and that makes them angry enough to act out. I tend to find that as these people grow older they eventually apologize to the people that they wronged, treat them the exact same way they did when they were younger, or would simply prefer to pretend that the people they bullied never existed at all.

I had a loose end in my plot line that I had been wondering what to do with for some time now but was hesitant to develop the storyline the way I had set things up in the following chapter… I didn't want to make Snow White out to be completely evil, but at the same time I had wanted the past that she had been ashamed of to come back and bite her so that I could develop her character better.

So in the end I gave in and you guys are not going to like Snow White for a few more chapters at least, but I'm hoping that some of you might scrape up some little bits of pity for how life is getting back at her through her daughter, Apple, who for the first time in her life is not happy with her mother.

XXX

"How was keeping all these secrets from me supposed to help or protect me mom? Daddy?" Apple demanded to the people on her phone screen in a heated tone. "I was made a fool of and nearly lost one of the most important people in my life! And instead of figuring out a different solution to things Raven ended unable to trust me and now she had to give up her fairytale birthright and marry a pervert!"

"Raven did what?" A hesitantly stunned woman's voice came from the phone.

Raven fidgeted in her seat at her desk as Apple launched into a long overdramatic explanation. The witch tried to focus on doing her thronework and not the heated way Apple was speaking to her parents, who not to long ago the princess used to think the world of before truths were revealed and things went sideways.

Raven felt guilty for being a small part of this ultimate switch between Apple wanting a happy ending just like her parents seemed to have, to wanting almost nothing to do with the two adults after she found out that it was all just one big lie.

It was painful to hear Apple unleash her ire at her parents, especially since the more time passed the more Raven realized that Apple had probably never raised her voice to her parents or defied them before, and the witch suspected that the two adults probably were under the impression that Apple could never get this angry or lecture so sternly that a gremlin would be cowed into apologizing for any harm that it had wrought on something.

Raven realized with a guilty flinch that Apple probably never tapped into this side of herself before she had met Raven. The witch had grown so used to their near constant fights about destiny that she was barely shocked by the princess's capabilities of verbally shaming people into their place and knew how to navigate her own arguments so that both she and Apple usually ended up calling a draw. It had been almost easier just after Legacy Day when Apple had been unpracticed and tried in vain to use tears and her you-are-so-cruel-to-this-pure-damsel-shame-on-you routine to get what she wanted, but once it sank in that such tactics only resulted in Raven unconsciously treating Apple like a bratty child for days after each argument… well the princess hadn't been all that pleased.

Raven had been unaware that she had been doing this until Apple irritably pointed it out while the witch had been cutting up the princess's food into bite-sized pieces one day… Raven swore up and down (while still cutting up the princess's food) that it had been unintentional… and that maybe Apple kept triggering some latent witchy maternal instinct and it wasn't like Raven could just simply ignore instinct since a great deal of hers were part magic based, part primal drive. And it wasn't like Raven minded cutting up the other girl's food and Raven really thought that Apple should be eating more greens to help build up her immune system for the coming cold months.

 _Weeks_ after that Apple had given Raven the stink eye (it didn't help at all when Raven would automatically chide the princess for making that face and warned her that it just might stick that way if the princess kept it up), it was almost a relief to them both, in a very twisted sort of way, when Apple got better at arguing and Raven's instincts started to see Apple as more of an adult and worthy adversary than a child. As a side effect it soon became known throughout Ever After High to avoid getting into a verbal match with Apple, about anything, because if the princess got her mind into it she could reduce many to tears, and terrify almost all the bystanders watching from the sidelines (which was partially why Apple and Raven tried to keep their arguments behind closed doors these days, and also there was the fact that some people at the school enjoyed watching them bicker like it was the best entertainment ever).

Kitty still looked back on that period of time fondly, much to both the witch and princess's chagrin.

"I'm not the only one that you should be apologizing to." Apple snarled suddenly grabbing Raven by the wrist and dragging her over to stand awkwardly in front of the king and queen of Ever After.

Suddenly Raven realized why Apple had made her wear her wedding dress.

Snow White made a shocked sound as she inhaled and quickly covered her mouth with her hands. The king didn't seem to know where to look when his gaze darted over Raven, her visible scars, and her tattoos.

Raven swallowed guiltily, both adults looked like they were about to cry.

"Your majesties." Raven greeted politely, putting her left fist into her palm and bowing deeply, the most common witch way of showing great respect. "It is my hopes that your harvests prove fruitful and that the moon goddesses my look down upon your lands favorably." The witch added for good measure, her father always told her that it always paid to attempt to be polite in the face of awkward political situations.

"Don't be so formal with them." Apple reprimanded, smacking Raven's arm lightly. "They're my parents, not the freaking empress and the royal consort to the middle sea empire."

"They are the queen and king to the most powerful kingdom of Ever After." Raven whispered desperately back, still bent over in a bow. "Plus they've graced my lands with profitable trade and open kindness to my people and merchants in years past."

"And you're the heir to both the most powerful witch kingdom in Ever After thanks to being a Queen, and the oldest human kingdom thanks to your dad being a king." Apple rolled her eyes while she forced the witch back into a standing position. "Geez! You never treated me like this when we first met."

"You were my princess, there's a different protocol to honorably address you in that situation." Raven informed, looking like a spooked animal as her gaze was forcibly met with two pairs of wide eyes.

"Protocol?" Snow White blurted out questioningly.

"She means the honor code that every villain has for their counterparts." Apple waved the woman off. "Now-"

"There's an honor code?" Snow White asked weakly.

"Yes… there is…" Raven bit her lip, feeling on edge. "I do not know the reasons why my mother would not have told you, but every villain family abides by a code of conduct tailored specifically towards looking after our story counterparts. It is the job of the first-born and heir of the Queen territories to watch over their princess and prince, and ensure their safety and happiness through their pre-fairytale life as well as helping prepare them for the trials of the future, and shelter them from any cruelty that the future queen and king may run into. If they so wish for something that we have the ability and the desire to provide them with then we will do our best to fulfill any desires that we deem that we are willing and able to provide. We are taught at a young age that we must do our best to balance serving the future monarchs of Ever After as well as doing whatever is needed to serve the needs of our own people in our own kingdom."

"Oh." The king said faintly.

Snow White seemed to pale, suddenly bursting into tears. "She knew." The woman sobbed. "Oh gods she knew." The woman continued before fleeing out of sight.

"My apologies I did not mean to upset- mmmph!" Raven soon found her mouth covered by Apple's gloved hand.

"Don't apologize for doing nothing wrong!" Apple ordered sternly. "Daddy, what was that all about?"

The king hesitated but in the face of his daughter's (surprisingly scary) glare he soon folded.

"The late Evil Queen-." He glanced at Raven before quickly amending. "Clawstorm Queen, as your mother often told you as a child, used to poison your mother on a regular basis. Now years later and in hindsight we can see that Clawstorm had done this out of self defense in the face of… certain wrongs being committed towards her at the time."

"And by that you mean how mom used to bully Raven's mother back in high school." Apple piped up, hugging Raven protectively, still glaring at her father.

Prince Charming winced looking down. "Y-yes… and of course you remember your mother telling you over the years about how she had dreams about her perfect happy ending every time that she was poisoned. Well… as time wore on and my… preferences started to make themselves known to both your mother and I… we both fell into our own personal ways of heavily denying the impending truth; I began arranging dates with anything that was female and your mother… began becoming addicted to being… poisoned by Clawstorm. She began to showing up at Clawstorm's dorm demanding for a poisoned apple or else she would harass the young woman for the rest of the day."

The king paused; slightly frightened at the way his daughter's eyebrow began to tick. "I have no idea what had gone on in those dreams but… I'm ashamed to say that aside from the day that you were born I had never seen your mother happier than after she spent some time in a poisoned dream induced state. Some issues did arise as our fairytale grew closer and it had become more and more obvious that we had been headed for a doomed happily ever after… Clawstorm had to cut your mother off of the poisoned apples at times due to the fact that your mother was starting to not do well in school and people were starting to get suspicious, especially since your mother had began cutting out her friends in favor of dreaming."

"Raven's mom knew that you two wouldn't work out." Apple deduced dryly. "That's why she gave mom those dreams of a perfect happy ending with you."

"…Actually, according to your mother I was not the Prince Charming of her dreams, in a twist to no doubt get back at your mother… Clawstorm made it so that your mother's dream prince was a suave warlock who dressed in black leather instead of me dressed in shining white armor." The king looked off to the side shiftily.

"This imaginary warlock's name didn't happen to be Maelstorm was it?" Raven eeked out sounding pained.

"Yes it was." The king confirmed. "How did you know?"

Raven scrunched up her eyes. "One of my mother's talents aside from making golems is gender shifting, while she cannot go completely male in certain ways, she could pass off as one pretty convincingly. Back when I was young she and my dad used to make the time to run around their kingdom's rougher districts in disguise and act like… well two drunken idiots, sometimes my mother would be in her male form and sometimes she would stay female. She used to change genders at will while she was raising me too for reasons that I'm still in the dark about, she and my human grandmother used to joke while playing their weekly games of strip poker that my mother had to be both a female and male role model for me because my father could be such a crybaby at times."

The witch looked between the two human's incredulous stares in confusion. "What?"

"Okay. One of these days you and I are going to sit down and have a serious talk about the people who raised you." Apple told the witch sternly.

"Why do people keep saying that to me?" Raven asked pouting.

"For very good reasons that's why!" Apple hissed.

"Obviously your mother had been merciful towards us." Prince Charming coughed, changing the subject. "And I suspect that in her own way she had been looking out for us while she worked at the same time to keep us as far away from her as possible. She _was_ the one who had taken pains to offer up glowing references of several warlocks who eventually came to work for us as our personal staff not long after Apple was born… and one of them… he and I have become very close in recent years…"

"You owe Anton sooo many flowers for keeping him your dirty little secret from me." Apple glared at her father. "He's a good man, practically helped raise me while you and mom were busy working, he deserves better."

"Anton will be ecstatic to know that you think of him so highly." Apple's father seemed to shrink slightly. "He's been worried that you might grow to hate him."

"As if." Apple rolled her eyes. "He's obviously head over heels for you if he so willingly put up with me going on and on about how in love I thought you and mom were, for years. That must have really hurt him."

Prince Charming winced.

"Before I hang up, is there anything else that Raven and I should know? Seeing as how there is a bunch of lunatics running around trying to kill her and her family off." Apple demanded with false sweetness.

"Heavens help those foolish enough to oppose you if you decide to go without your fairytale like you have been threatening to do recently." The king chuckled nervously. "Actually… I think that there might be something you should know…"

XXX

"Was I the only one who heard that… angry howl?" Mira asked, looking around her. She and Blondie were walking back to the dorms from their interview with Tiny.

"That's not exactly an uncommon sound to hear every so often." Blondie waved off the other girl's worry. "You should have heard Edward shriek the time when Duchess threw him out a window."

XXX

"I can't believe them!" Apple roared, pacing the room like an enraged caged beast. "They knew that those lords were up to no good with your kingdom and yet they still authorized to send them raw materials for who knows what and allowed one of our advanced magics divisions to construct some sort of giant magical magnet laser, blissfully choosing to believe that it was for mass transportation services? That meteorite that nearly flattened you was made up of seventy percent iron! How could they just stand back and-"

While Apple continued to rant Raven salvaged the princess's phone, which had been thrown across the room, from atop her bed's canopy. Prince Charming was still on the line, looking at Raven shame-faced.

Raven quietly signaled for the man to stay on the line and sneaked onto the balcony where it was quieter.

"Would you be willing to send over the specs for that laser, as well as a list of the raw materials you sent over, and a list of all the names of the people involved with asking you for those things?" The witch requested quietly.

"You will have them by tomorrow morning." Prince Charming promised solemnly. "It is the least we could do… for all the pain we've caused. Though know this Miss Queen; if either one of us had any concrete evidence that we had been aiding what could have been a horrific tragedy, we would have never done business with your known enemies. We had been told that they were trying to use magnets and magic to create a cheaper subway system rail track much like the system that your kingdom currently uses, we didn't think to check over what they had our experts inventing until after our air traffic sensors detected an anomaly of magic in your airspace before the meteorite crashed."

Raven nodded, it made sense, the tip of the White kingdom was across the east side of a very large bay that it shared with the Queen kingdom that led out to the North Sea, close enough for both of their kingdom's air radar systems to detect something amiss in the sky.

"You didn't say anything to my family about any of this before." Raven stated feeling a little disjointed.

The king nodded. "Another mistake on our part. We had… guessed that your mother's poisoning of Wonderland and all those other worlds had been due to a mental break down that had been a direct result of our careless actions… we feared that your grandmother would have made our mistake public to get back at us, so we kept quiet hoping that it would all just… blow over in time."

"She didn't exactly poison those worlds." Raven's emotionless tone felt odd to her own ears. "We've stumbled across new evidence that she only made it look like she had poisoned those worlds so that she could trap our most violent enemies, the same ones who had organized that attack against us, who had fled into hiding in them. She's far from innocent but she isn't the evil person we all thought she was. Her sanity might need to be called into question but all the wrongs of the past have not broken her completely, her tactics are all of misdirection and sacrifice for the sake of both her family and her kingdom, she has at least retained that much dignity with herself."

"I might need to call upon you again for help, will you offer it to me without me having to worry that sensitive information will go to the wrong hands?" Raven asked in the ensuing stunned silence, all business.

"I think that my queen and I are… finally done with placing wrongful blame upon your family for our own issues. I… apologize, for the both of us, it was not our place to help facilitate events that eventually led to your mother's… rash insane decisions and all of the pain you must have had to endure over the years." The man spoke looking down, thoroughly chastised.

It was one thing to be talking to the girl under the assumption that at least her mother had been far worse in her crimes against the world then they had been with their ignorance and prejudice against anything that had to do with their former classmate... but to know that the woman wasn't actually evil, had actually been willing to go so far as to make every kingdom and territory believe that she was a monster of the worst kind, all for the sake of ensuring that the same people that had harmed her family and kingdom were trapped in an unfamiliar place without anybody from Ever After able to help them escape… all for the sake of protecting both her family and people…

And here he and his wife were, the king and queen of the largest realm of Ever After, cowering away from the fact that they had nearly started a gruesome war, all because they had held onto such childish ill will and did not want to face their actions of the past; his wife's cruelty towards Clawstorm, and his selective ignorance to it. As a result their daughter now hated them, Clawstorm had been forced to protect her people through extreme means and was despised universally for it, and Clawstorm's young daughter had been left to clean up the damage.

Raven glanced over to Apple who was still pacing and ranting. "How's about you promise to help me right these wrongs and to stop hiding things from Apple, and I'll see if I can keep your guy's role in aiding a terrorist plot to kill thousands of my people out of the official reports when I relay all of this information to my family and in-laws. Does that sound doable?"

"That sounds like an act of mercy." The man looked vulnerable.

Raven narrowed her eyes coolly at the man. "Apple still needs you guys to be around and out of trouble with the public eye, despite the fact that she is really mad at you right now, and there is the fact that I still have half a mind to take action against you… but I won't, because your daughter needs you… and for some strange reason my instincts are yelling at me that my mother might be in need of your guy's help in the near future too." Raven said before ending the call.

XXX

"So you can speak to a person face to face with these things too?" Clawstorm in her Mira disguise spoke in awe to Little Red Riding Hood on her new mirror-phone. "How do I make it so that I can see your face?"

"Swipe the screen to phone menu options and tap the mirror-chat icon." Simone instructed.

"Swipe?" Clawstorm asked.

"…Hasn't anyone at your little club commented to you about your lack of computer skills?" Simone sighed despairingly.

"I told them that the magic mirror despised new technology so I wasn't exposed to it much. They've been very helpful in teaching me the basics of computer work so that I can do my part, at the very least I know how to type." Clawstorm hummed while she flicked through her phone options distractedly.

"Oh! There you are!" The witch cheered when she accidentally got her friend's face to pop up. "You're all upside-down!"

Simone sighed again. "The reason why I called is because my sources are telling me that, your father has been poking around into your past, coming dangerously close to finding out who Raven's father is more than a few times in the process. And he's discovered that you attended a school in a foreign dimension, I can't be sure but he might have his own contacts in that monster universe and if he does it would be practically nothing to find out that you've gotten a doctorate in mad science, emphasizing in… what was it again?"

"It was nano-technology, my thesis was based on my work of incorporating the right levels of magic into microscopic talismans, originally I had intended for my experiments to eventually be used to help fight against genetic diseases, curses, and for it to be injected into the body and act as a synthetic immune system for people who lack one." Clawstorm smiled wryly. "Can you imagine the look on that old man's face if he ever got his hands on my thesis, it might just break his mind to see something so entirely un-evil that had been written by the most diabolical criminal in Ever After history!"

"I think that he'd be more concerned over your mental health and what went wrong." A deeper voice spoke.

The Big Bad Wolf came up behind his wife in his human form and gave her a kiss on the cheek in greeting.

"Hello Bane." Clawstorm greeted her old friend. "You're back home early."

Bane rolled his eyes. "I take it that she's not at all concerned by the fact that the Headmaster is combing through her life history?" The man asked his wife.

"Not in the least." Simone shook her head. "She's not even a little incredulous."

"Well the cat's already out of the bag that I'm not the same evil genocidal, world-conquering person that everyone thought that I was. The way I think of it, him finding out about my thesis and all the work that I've been conducting from my former prison via instructing the lab monkeys through a series of charmed mirrors that the university has set up, is the perfect way of gauging how well he might be manipulated into doing something that's actually beneficial to us, and also the initial freak out will be well worth observing. A revenge I suppose you could say over how worthless the bastard used to make me feel when I was a kid." Clawstorm snickered, an evil looking grin on Mira's face.

"Speaking of; have you had the time to check in with your boss and substitute yet? I know that you're on a year's sabbatical and everything but you did promise to call them every once in awhile, we don't need them getting worried and trying to find you, especially since they don't know about your second career as the Evil Queen." Simone reminded.

Clawstorm chuckled. "The boss man just wished me a good year to celebrate getting unstuck from an enchanted mirror, he's still buying the story that I had gotten stuck in it after a little "mishap" with a home experiment. My substitute and former student, Tiki, is doing a good job terrorizing the lab monkeys and keeping our latest project on track. And she gets a gold sticky star for making a guy from a rival university cry for his mummy after she caught him trying to steal project secrets."

The couple gave their witch friend a flat look. It figured that Clawstorm would have found a place of employment that was just as crazy as she was.

"Back to the issue at hand; what if the Headmaster finds out that your former prince and princess were the ones who helped your enemies create a doomsday weapon?" Simone asked. "What will you do then?"

"He won't find out." Clawstorm shook her head, Mira's red hair swaying to and fro as a result to the motion. "I destroyed the paper trail as soon as I found it and fabricated a new one that is just good enough for a cursory bystander to assume that it had been the Waco Clan who had helped them, and even if he does look closer to find that those documents are fake… then the king and queen of Ever After would still be the last place that anybody will look."

"Why are you protecting them like this?" Bad Wolf demanded. "I can understand the concept of loyalty but I can't understand your loyalty to the people who have been nothing but disloyal to you. Why didn't you let them bear the consequences of their actions and force them to face the repercussions?"

The witch looked off to the side, shadows appearing under her eyes. "The request forms that I had found stated that my enemies had said that they were just looking for help in making a magnetic railway that was more efficient and cheaper than what is found on my lands. The king and queen probably didn't even know that they had been conned."

Clawstorm shrugged. "It all could have just very well have been a case of human error for them not to think to check up on such a thing, logically my enemies could have learned of my past grievances with those guys, how their kingdom's government system works, and knew that there was a possibility that they wouldn't check into the project because they had made it pretty clear in certain circles that they had wanted nothing to do with me. So there was a chance that they knew that the king and queen would not want to get in the middle of my kingdom's silent war against those lords, not check what was really going on with the project, and if the king and queen raised any fuss then my enemies would have a form of leverage over them, making it look like they had been the ones wanting to wipe out one of the very few witch territories in Ever After, leaving my land's people too suspicious to accept the help and trade that we rely on from their kingdom."

"And what if it wasn't a mistake? What if it was their intention of using your enemies to take you guys out for them?" Simone asked, looking grave. "Can you really take that chance?"

"I have to." Clawstorm defended her eyes misting over despite her best efforts not to cry. "Because if that were true… I just can't believe that they would hate me, or my race so much that they would be willing to endanger so many lives! Not after the history my family has had with theirs! And Ever After is a land that is home to so many different races, many of those citizens have originated from my lands, what could they possibly have to gain from killing us? I just can't think of any beneficial motive for them to have knowingly done what they did, and I can't bear to think about what I'd do if it were true because… because how will my family and lands ever find peace if they turn into the enemy of us?"

Simone and Bane shared a look.

"My enemy is a small but influential radical group, that is run half by greedy rich people who want to profit from war and the spoils of conquered land, and half by social climbing racist idiots with ideals of humans becoming the lone superior race. They may not hold enough power to be taken seriously by all of the kingdoms of Ever After, especially since they have been cut off from their leaders and a great deal of them have been recently arrested and will be stripped of their titles, but they do have that weapon, and if they ever get as lucky to cast doubt on my land's allies in the eyes of my people as they had before with the king and queen, they could start some real trouble, perhaps even war." Clawstorm mused out loud. "If we are going to beat these guys once and for all we need to destroy their weapon and outfox all of the most influential players, leaving the rest of their followers no choice but to disband and to flee before the light is shined on them too."

"But in order to protect your family you could not share all this information with them. How are you going to shed light on anything when you are still a criminal and have about half a dozen worlds calling for your blood?" Bad Wolf asked.

Clawstorm smirked. "Remember how Kline-bastard had injected Raven's blood with the micro-talismans he had paid that stupid mad scientist wannabe to create based on my research? The ones designed to keep her from preforming good magic if he had failed to kill her but succeeded to kill me? Well… I didn't have the time to clear her blood of the stuff but I did have the time to create a new batch of talismans and I had injected my daughter's blood with this new batch, which was designed to keep a certain crowed of crazies away from her… well you already know that they had filtered Raven's blood so that she could be free from those things and let's just say that I left a pretty big clue on the batch that I had made…"

XXX

"The reports from those samples you shipped out on high priority are back Healer." A man in a lab coat set several envelopes down on Healer Phalange's desk.

"'Bout damn time." Healer Phalange groused as the man took his leave. "How long should it take for a bunch of eggheads to stop drooling over something new and shiny to get a freaking report written up? It's been weeks!"

As she looks over the reports Healer Phalange ticks one eyebrow up in an impressed manner, which many of her staff and patients have learned over the years to be a very bad sign.

"It was concluded that the previously unidentified wording of the talisman specimen used to ward off a specific individual or individuals was translated to 'Ordinem de Malleus Maleficarum et Maleficorum'… which roughly translates to…"

"What the hell?" Healer Phalange snarled picking up her phone and dialing.

"Hello? ...This is Healer Phalange of the Ever After High medical wing I must speak to your Broom-Mistress Elenore immediately, it is of urgent importance that I talk to her right away!"


	27. Chapter 27

"What in the kingdom?" Milton blinked in disbelief at the scroll document in his hands.

"Something wrong?" Giles asked from his chair across the room, setting down his book onto the coffee table when in response Milton banged the palm of his hand against the side of his head and scrubbed at his eyes.

"That informant of yours, from that strange monster dimension that you've had dealings with in the past, he tracked down the university where Clawstorm attended, got her doctorate… and apparently has been working there as one of their top mad scientists for the _past few years_. She's famous for not only, get this, her groundbreaking work into microscopic nano talisman technology for the work of curing illnesses and saving lives, but during an experiment she had been conducting at her home seven years ago she had somehow gotten trapped in a dimension that seems to be behind all of the mirrors of another unknown dimension. But thanks to her knowledge in charms she was able to contact her colleagues from the dimension she was trapped in and because her research was so important the university they set up a series of charmed mirrors so that she could instruct graduate students while they act as her hands and eyes while conducting projects."

Milton picked up a paperback book and waved it in the air. "This is her published book, filled with diagrams and detailed algorithms on how to use these micro talismans to treat diseases and help _treat_ poison victims."

Giles was silent for a moment. "Well Snaggle Tooth may be an odd creature at times but they are one of the best at what they do… plus with the sheer amount of information that I gave to them on your daughter there is no way that they'd mistake someone else for her."

"So you're saying that the same woman who poisoned Wonderland and a whole bunch of other worlds was somehow able to live a double life as a miracle worker and a respected mad scientist? From prison?" Milton demanded.

"Well that is her picture on the back of that book you're waving around." Giles shrugged helplessly.

Milton turned the book over to stare at mentioned picture.

"In the monster dimension she is known as Clawstorm Q. Grimmbook." Milton argued weakly.

"Grimmbook, Grimm, and Grimmreaper are all very common names there, and it is not uncommon for complete strangers to simply appear in the middle of the street, it's a perfect place for someone to live a double life without anybody batting an eye about it." Giles shrugged again.

" _Grimmbook_?" Milton emphasized.

Giles took a sip of his cocoa. "When I knew her while she was a student here she was very fond of using sarcasm when faced with her adversaries, and she found irony to be the universe's best joke. That sounds just like her to pick that last name as a private joke at our expense no doubt… though that joke may have turned on her now that she knows about you being her father…"

"Why would she even bother doing… these kind of good deeds? She's evil!" Milton exclaimed.

"…Clawstorm has always been good at misdirection?" The younger man tried.

"But the spell we put on her should have limited her magical abilities, surely she shouldn't have been able to charm even one of those mirrors to get into contact with the monster realm." Milton shook his head.

"A spell that can only be broken or circumvented by someone with the same familial blood as the caster." Giles pointed out slowly. "She probably tried the first day she was in there and just assumed that it had been due to her family's inborn knack with mirror magic and that we had been idiots not to realize such a thing from the beginning."

Milton stared at the witch's picture again, a hand covering his mouth as he looked at the image with wide eyes.

"I wonder why she never escaped years ago." Giles mused. "I mean when you are locked in a room what's the first thing you do? You check the sturdiness of the locks; you explore your prison from top to bottom looking for weaknesses so that you might be able to escape. If she was able to get a job as a mad scientist while trapped inside the mirror dimension then surely at some point she would have figured out that she could have escaped at any time… so why would she stay? Why would she feel the need to poison those worlds in the first place when all of our evidence shows that she is too smart and stable to do something like that? And for that matter why would she steal the Book of Legends in the first place and go to so much trouble cloning a forgery?"

In response Milton merely clutched at his head looking pained.

"I wonder which one of you was the one to contribute to this sneaky, misdirection trait of hers, you or Elenore?" Giles wondered.

"This is going to bug me until I manage to get some answers to all of this." Milton groaned. "I'm already losing sleep over trying to figure out just what my granddaughter has been up to and what dangers that she is trying to ward of with this mysterious contract that she has going on… I'm never going to sleep a wink again if this keeps up."

XXX

"I can't believe them." Apple sniffled into Raven's lap as the witch ran her fingers through the princess's hair soothingly.

After a long while where Apple had stormed around their dorm in a ranting rage filled fit, the princess finally calmed down enough to join Raven on the princess's bed and just allowed the witch to hold her while she allowed herself to cry over the news of what her parents had done all those years ago.

"I can't believe how rough the past few weeks have been for you." Raven shook her head in disbelief. "I'm sorry for not giving you enough credit in your abilities in being able to stand up against change in the past. I had difficulties talking for months after mom went off the deep end, you… you are so much stronger then I ever was."

"Well I don't feel particularly strong right now." Apple hiccupped. "If anything I feel mortified! Your people and your grandmother could have been wiped out that day and it would have been my parent's entire fault! They are such hypocrites! Drumming into my head about how I needed to be perfect and fair and follow the script when they-… I'm so sick of all of the lies! Here I am trying to sort my life out so that I can see whether or not I can be with you, the one person I'm starting to care about the most in the world and then they just… keep throwing all of these things at me and I'm all unstable all over again!"

"Be with me?" Raven asked.

"You said that you would go away after high school and my fairytale was done, on more than one occasion. And even though I'm starting to realize that a fairytale is not what I want, I still want a happy ending and… this may not make sense to you but the only happily ever after that I can see in my future is one with you in it. These feelings I have for you… they're so confusing because I care for you way more than a friend, but in a completely different way than a sister or a relative, the knowledge of this on top of all the other stuff is making it difficult to get my mind around these feelings and now I'm torn between losing you to someone like Faybelle, who is totally being a creepy pervert in her attentions towards you, or some other maiden with the same intentions, and hurting you if I act too quickly and enter a new type of relationship with you without getting my feelings all sorted out! It's so frustrating!" Apple cried into the fabric of Raven's night robes.

Raven froze. "Eh?"

"I told you it was confusing." Apple grumbled. "I'm not asking you to hold off forever if I take too long to figure my life out, I'd never forgive myself if I ended up hurting you because it took so long to figure out… something. But I refuse to lose you in at least being my closest companion and one of my trusted friends, so I'm going to stick by you in whatever insanity that life is going to throw at us, especially since right now you're the only major influence in my life that has been… sincere to me. Even when you were hiding things you were open about having to hide things and gave me good reasons for not telling me, you were so understanding and apologetic about it! And now that you're starting to tell me these secrets I feel… more stable than I have been in my life as sad as that is."

Raven was silent for a moment, gently prodding the princess to turn over so that she could look the other in the eye.

"I hired Dexter and Daring to look at a website for a small commoner's floral shop that is, oddly enough, owned by one of the richest lords who is known to be apart of my land's small group of enemies. They found something hidden in the data, a large coded account, and planning book of everything and anything having to do with taking out the Queen territories and our people. Dexter copied the whole file, closed down his old computer and got a new one just in case somebody on the other side realizes that they'd been hacked. He hasn't decoded all of it yet but we've gotten enough evidence on some individuals to get them arrested, leaving six main lords in total left who are believed to be running this thing, plus about twenty to thirty of their loyal underlings either still roaming free or unaccounted for in our list of names." Raven confessed easily, running her fingers over Apple's cheek.

"My maternal grandmother is keeping up the appearance of being ill so that if anybody tries anything on our lands she could transport over there through a mirror and give them a real nasty surprise. My father, who as you know is the Good King, is cautiously hoping that one day it'll be safe enough for him to declare me as his heir, my paternal grandmother is working with the Evil Fairy on strategies and quietly installing special defense grids that would help protect key cities from falling space debris, the civilians think that it's just a bunch of satellite discs for increasing our air space radar, and I need some help picking out a gift for Maddie and Kitty for their two year anniversary."

Raven smiled down at Apple. "I would like some help with finding an appropriate gift. Did hearing more truth help make you feel better?"

Apple blinked in surprise. "Yes." She eventually decided. "It did make me feel a little better. Thank you."

Raven smiled a little wider. "I am pleased to hear that my princess."

XXX

"So… what you two are saying is that the Evil Queen isn't really all that evil?" Briar asked Lizzie and Humphrey late in the evening. Her tone was slow and disbelieving.

"It all checks out thus far! Honestly I'm just as surprised as everyone else!" Lizzie shook her head. "My mother's most loyal witches have just confirmed that the curse swirling above our skies is in fact not a curse at all! It's powerful, and it's filled with lots of magic, but it's completely harmless."

"So does that mean that the quarantine will be lifting soon and you guys can finally be able to go home?" Briar asked a little breathless, because for as long as she had known Lizzie the girl always longed to go back home to her mother with a desire so strong it hurt to look at her sometimes.

Lizzie breathed a heavy sigh. "It's not that simple."

"Read the pages that have the orange sticky notes on the sides." Humphrey instructed, waiting patiently as the princess did just that.

"Shit!" Briar hissed her entire body tensing.

"My mother had a similar reaction." Lizzie scratched her ear. "And while there is no excusing the Evil Queen's methods, my mother does concede that having a group of the likes of _that_ going after your family and queendom does merit that the Evil Queen's punishment be downsized from being beheaded and her corpse paraded through the streets to being sentenced to ten years working as a gladiator in the royal coliseum. Though privately my mother confessed to some reluctant respect towards our land's greatest enemy, she is a mother and a queen too after all so she can't help but to understand."

"So what are you going to do?" Briar asked.

"Raven and I will have to discuss that very soon, since she is the only one that can break the spell cast in Wonderlandian skies, however the risks to her homeland if she does free us could be dire so we must reach an agreement quickly." Lizzie's somber tone set Briar's nerves on edge.

XXX

Daring felt weird.

His fairytale was a lie.

The original Evil Queen was a good guy.

And he felt like he had missed something with Raven, an opportunity that got ripped away when the witch informed him that she had married Faybelle.

Before all this insanity with Raven trying to keep a war from breaking out, Daring hadn't spared the witch much thought. She was never really into his charms and she was not a maiden so she had been rather irrelevant as far as he had been concerned, so he ignored her, and her cause, and just continued on with daily life of trying to be as charming as possible.

And then he found out that she was a lesbian, came up to him and actually turned him down (even though it had been a simple case of mistaken identity she still turned him down!) and that stung him, it stung him because if he wasn't at least charming to everybody then he was a failure at being a Prince Charming, and that had been the only thing that mattered for as long as he could remember!

She merely humored him and his attempts to charm her, which had stung even more, it just didn't compute in his brain that there wasn't a girl out there that he couldn't win over. She had even _grimaced_ when he had kissed her in an attempt to break her of a curse!

And then he saw her hooked up to that machine to get her blood strained in order to extract a curse that someone had poisoned her with when she was small, he saw her old scars, and he realized that she had more things to worry about than to be at all concerned with him.

Daring didn't know how to feel about that.

Then his fairytale turned out to be nothing but one big lie and he had been heartbroken, completely devastated. But Raven had been very nice to him about it, doing what she could to make him feel better, knew just the right things to say. She was like the friend that he never knew that he had craved to have until she came into the picture. Helping her when she needed him made him feel good inside, he was worried out of his mind, but he was glad that she at least wanted his help.

Daring wondered if she had felt the same way he did about his fairytale being a lie when her mom dishonored the Evil Queen title. She had confessed to him once that when she was very little, becoming the Evil Queen was an honor that she used to be excited to receive, before that honor was taken away.

And now she would never know because her birthright had been taken away, and for some reason he felt like Faybelle was taking Raven away too along with the witch's title.

With a sigh Daring was broken from his musings when his phone rang, he sat up in bed, plastered on the best smile he could muster, and answered the call.

"Hello- uh." The boy froze when he stared at the half dressed woman on the screen. Her black hair with blood red highlighted streaks was haphazardly mussed, she wore no make up on her young looking face but the determined set in her lips and the clearness of her violet eyes more than made up for that, and the thin straps of what he guessed was her bed clothes was completely off her shoulders, making the fabric covering her chest precariously close to slipping off the swell of her-

"Um… your shirt…" Daring swallowed, his mouth felt dry.

"Wha-? Oh! Dreadfully sorry about that, I was in such a hurry to put on some clothes and contact you that I didn't notice that. I'd hate to give off the wrong first impression and terrorize your poor eyes to this old woman's crippled body." The woman's voice felt like velvet to Daring's ears.

Daring had to disagree, he was the exact opposite of terrorized. Of all the carefully planned first impressions girls have made to him over the years, this completely unplanned one made his heart beat frantically in his chest.

He'd never seen anyone more gorgeous.

"I can assure you that I am not terrorized at all." His voice came out slightly wobbly, a blush painting his nose and cheeks. "It's lovely to meet you Miss…?"

"I'm Elenore Queen. If you are Daring or Dexter Charming then I'm sure that my granddaughter has told you about me." The woman smirked, a little bewitchingly. Completely different from the temped sweet smiles that maidens would always give him.

"Me is Daring!" Daring rushed the words out, somehow not wanting to be mistaken for his brother.

"I hope that I'm not troubling you but this is rather urgent, I need you to do a keyword search on those encrypted documents that you and your brother have been looking into lately!" Elenore instructed while pulling her shirt up to more modest standards.

"Right." Daring nodded, leaping from his bed.

It was easy to literally yank Dexter out of his bed thus waking his brother in the process, but words to describe what was going on seemed to escape him due to the fact that he was dangerously close to declaring that the most beautiful woman he had ever seen was on his phone and that his heart felt like it was going to take flight and soar to the heavens and he didn't know why.

Dexter was less than enthused by being so rudely extracted from bed in the middle of the night and being held up by his shoulders by his brother who had apparently lost his mind.

Fortunately Elenore Queen had piped up from the phone that was still on Daring's bed asking if everything was all right and Dexter had taken things from there, which was a good thing because Daring didn't think that he was capable of doing much except staring at the beautiful woman on his phone screen.

"You want me to do a keyword search on the words; Ordinem de Malleus Maleficarum et Maleficorum?" Dexter asked his eyes going wide and panicked. "But that's… don't those words translate to the _order of the hammer against witches and warlocks_?"

"Indeed they do." Elenore nodded grimly. "Did my granddaughter tell you about the talismans found in her blood?"

"Yeah, they were there to mess with her magic right?" Dexter recalled.

"Correct, but there's more to it, her doctor found two sets of talismans, one designed to hinder her magical progress, the other was to ward off a certain group, the same group named Ordinem de Malleus Maleficarum et Maleficorum. I believe that this is the same group that tried to kill my granddaughter seven years ago."

The room went silent.

"I'm typing those words as we speak." Dexter declared, turning on his computer and doing exactly as he promised to do.

Several moments later the boy exclaimed softly. "Woah." Dexter blinked.

"You find something?" Daring demanded, now successfully broken out of his love filled daze to focus on more important matters. He picked up his phone and made it face Dexter's computer screen so that Elenore could see what was going on.

"More than something." Dexter murmured. "Those keywords automatically decrypted all the files, we have access to everything." The boy spoke as he clicked to the first document.

"Hey, that picture looks familiar." Daring pointed to a black and white illustration of a woman strapped to a burning post with a bunch of men feeding kindling to the fire all around her. The words; _Ordinem de Malleus Maleficarum et Maleficorum_ were written at the very top of the page in big font letters.

" _Damn it_!" Elenore cursed viciously.

"We are so very over our heads." Dexter breathed.

XXX

There was a whoosh of warm air that traveled into the dorm, stirring Raven into the waking world of early morning.

"Hmmm warm." Apple stretched lazily, observing the sight of Raven blinking herself awake.

"What was that?" Raven groaned trying to move up but finding herself pinned down by Apple. "I thought I sensed something."

"'S too early for crazy to happen." Apple protested as she snuggled closer. "I dun wanna let you go."

"Are you feeling better?" Raven asked sleepily.

"It still hurts." Apple whined, tucking her head under Raven's chin. "But being hugged like this helps."

"…Speaking of not wanting to let me go…" Raven began remembering their conversation from last night. "I fell asleep before I could ask you… That princess you've asked me to wait for until she's figured out what to do with her life… is that princess actually you?"

Apple's grip on Raven's waist tightened and she opened her mouth to speak-

However the sound of loud music floating in through the balcony interrupted her.

Raven grumbled as she sat up and made to get out of Apple's bed. "What in the world is going on so early in the mor- EEEP!" She screamed as her bare feet slipped on the unfamiliar sensation of the floor being covered in a blanket of flowers.

"Raven?" Apple called, looking down at the fallen witch in worry.

"What the hex is all this?" Raven demanded as she pushed herself up, flowers clinging to her face and short hair. "It's way too early for this kind of insanity!"

Apple cautiously put her feet to the floor and helped Raven up. "Let's find out what's going on."

The two walked carefully to the balcony, both noting that their dorm neighbors had been disturbed by the music as well (they could not see if their dorms had been covered in flowers too), Briar was particularly stormy faced when she nodded to them in greeting.

"Is that Edward Spider?" Apple asked as she and the witch peered over their balcony.

Edward was standing on the lawn facing them, his mirrorpad (which was playing a song with lyrics that kept repeating the words " _I'm sorry my love_ " every few verses) held up to the dorms with two of his arms, and a large banner spread out on the ground with the words; _I'm sorry Tiffany! You can be whoever you want to be! (Please tell Duchess to stop hunting me! I won't bother her anymore either!)_

"Should we tell him that Tiffany's dorm is in the wing opposite of us?" Raven murmured to the three princesses within hearing range.

"I think that I'll just call her over." Ashlynn volunteered while giggling to herself.

"Better yet, call Cerise to rush her over, it'll be faster, and there will be a better chance that she'll get the message instead of just turning her phone off." Briar suggested with a yawn. "I'd be just cruel to not do something after all this work he's gone through with this display and the freaking flowers invading our dorm." She grouched, casting a squinty-eyed glare over her shoulder to the mentioned room.

"Flower explosions!" Raven realized with a snap of her fingers. "I knew I sensed magic in the air! Flower explosions are these little satchels that are magically compacted with fresh flowers, and when they are thrown or set off flowers explode everywhere!"

"He must have thrown more than a few onto our balconies to get this much coverage." Apple murmured with a hint of respect. "Though where did he get so many? The ones that they sell in the village are teeny tiny, there is no way that he would have been able to stockpile this many fresh flowers in such a short time- …unless…" The princess peered back over the balcony suspiciously.

"Unless what?" Raven asked.

"Well I know that in one of the campus grounds work sheds they keep larger bags of flower explosions for upcoming events… like for the school's spring fair…" The princess sighed pityingly. "I hope that they get Tiffany here soon… because Edward is going to be in a lot of trouble."

"And he didn't even get the right wing of the dorms…" Raven shook her head sadly.

"Prrrp? Mah!" Nevermore complained from their dorm, the witch and princess moving back inside just in time to see the tiny dragon pop her head out of a pile of flowers and look around her territory in bewilderment. "Peep? Peep!"

"Awww. Everything looks different compared to last night when you fell asleep, huh Nevermore?" Apple cooed through her giggle fit, walking forward to collect the confused dragon into her arms.

"I'll see if I can get permission to take her to class with me." Raven chuckled with a shake of her head. "Once she gets over her shock she's bound to come to the realization that lots of these flowers are edible. If we leave her here she'll get fat off of treats she should not be having."

"I'll ask too, so that we can tag team if either one of us has a class that she's not allowed to be in." Apple proposed, kissing the top of the dragon's slender head.

"Oh dear gods is that Edward?" Tiffany's voice exclaimed from Ashlynn and Briar's balcony. "And the flowers- where did he get so many flowers? And why are they scattered all over your dorm?"

"Maw!" Nevermore appeared to agree with Tiffany.

A frantic knock sounded at the front door, drawing Raven's attention.

"I'll get it." The witch volunteered, unable to help chuckling again when Nevermore looked around the room frantically and continued to make confused sounds while Apple tried to calm the creature.

"Emergency!" Dexter cried as he rushed into the room after Raven opened the door. "We found something very import-EEEP!" The boy cried out as he tripped over the flowers and fell to the floor at Apple's feet.

Daring walked in at a more sedate pace. "What happened in here?" He asked in bewilderment as he looked around the flower-covered room.

"From what we can gather Edward wanted to apologize to Tiffany but he didn't know which balcony to send the flowers to." Raven informed as she helped Dexter back onto his feet. "What are you two doing here so early in the morning?"

"We finished decrypting the entire file that we cloned from that website." Dexter spoke while adjusting his glassed and rubbing his sore nose.

"Raven." Daring's voice tuned serious, he placed his large hands on her shoulders and looked her in the eye with his pitying ones. "Get dressed quickly. There are a few things that you have to see. You are not going to like it, but you have to see."


	28. Chapter 28

A/n: Some action scenes will be coming in sooon, I just need to make a few more thing understandable so that I can continue to the next step. Writing a story with a lot of politics and cold war themes is a lot more involved than I thought, I mean if you can't come at your enemy head on with all out war then you have to out think, out maneuver, and out smart them in every step of the way to not only take them down but to avoid all out war. And then I've got all of these personal relationships going on in the meantime and I need to keep injecting this with bits of humor or else I'll get board with my own writing…

And for some reason I keep wanting to make members of the Queen family out to be complete badasses. Like with explosions and super smarts and insanely powerful in-born magic, and all around more witchyness than what I see in the websodes.

XXX

"Your grandmother called us late last night. She had been told that the healers had translated some writing off of one some of those talismans that they found in your blood, it had been designed to ward away members from a specific group. She had asked us to do a word search on those documents we found to see if we'd find anything, only it had turned out the name of that group had been the key to decrypting everything." Dexter fidgeted nervously in his seat. "I sent her a copy of everything and she had asked us to skim through as many files as we could stomach so that we could give you the gist of what we have."

Raven nodded her head in understanding, looking weary. "Who is this group that has you and Daring so twitchy?" She asked.

With a deep breath Dexter clicked on his computer screen.

Daring had been right, Raven did not like what she saw.

Raven never considered herself one prone to fainting spells, but it was a very near thing for her when she took one look at Dexter's computer screen and saw that horrible image beneath those words that still held the ability to make just about every Ever After witch and warlock's blood run cold. Raven had never thought that she'd ever fall into Daring Charming's arms either but once the whole romance thing was taken out of it the boy was rather sturdy to lean on and very useful in keeping her from making an embarrassing fall to the floor.

"I thought that they died out centuries ago!" Raven's voice shook along with her body. "They should be all gone! Nothing more that a black mark in history and a scary story that keeps witchlings up in the night after they finish scaring each other with the tales!"

"Who are you talking about Raven?" Apple was by the witch's side immediately. "What does that picture mean?" The princess demanded to the two boys in the room.

"Witch hunters." Daring explained, rocking the shivering witch while he held her tighter so that she would not fall. "Centuries ago before the Book was created and before the wars stopped, a particular group of humans used to hunt down anything not human and kill them, witch's used to be a particularly special target because they look so human in appearance, they used to sweep from town to town and conduct witch hunts. They would drag innocent people out of their homes and torture them until they confessed that they were witches, regardless of them being witches or not."

"They did such horrible things…" Raven breathed, unconsciously trying to move closer to Daring, move closer to something alive and what felt safe. "My people. They haven't- I know that there have been reports of people disappearing in the areas just outside of our borders, and the rumors going around but- please tell me that they haven't-… that my people weren't-…!"

Dexter seemed to deflate in his chair. "…I can't tell you that Raven. I'm sorry. It's all in this folder, the accounts of… successful hunts that are required for the new members of this group that aren't related to the people already in their ranks… to be initiated. The only solace that I can give you is that it does not happen very often and it has ceased since your mother fake-poisoned those worlds. …Unfortunately most of them have used code names so…"

"They've kept their group numbers very small, and they have been very quiet and sneaky up till a few years ago about their business against us." Raven acknowledged. "It's what has made arresting the group's members so difficult, we had no concrete evidence against them, and there are secluded hermits dotting all over our rural borders, if something were to happen to one of them very few to no one would know. The magic that surrounds our boarder and the enchanted trees keep unwanted visitors out but more often than not the hermits will cross the border to sell their merchandise to the small markets in the neighboring kingdoms because there is more demand for goods that can only be found in our lands since many of our neighbors can no longer grow the things that the common people used to thrive off of on their lands anymore."

Raven shook her head in dismay. "Many hermits don't even do it for the money, we've publically tried to put pressure on those neighboring kingdoms to pass laws that will allow for conservation efforts or let more aide through since the lords take so much and leave so little to their starving people in return, but very few have sided with us on this matter and because most matters of this nature are left up to a vote amongst the same lords causing all of this… and the ones who go against the majority or the most influential tend to… suffer fatal accidents. To keep up appearances and to stave off rebellions they have allowed small business owners and farmers to send their children off to school in the Queen lands but there is a mandatory rule that those children have to come back for certain weeks out of the year, the children's family cannot migrate away to live as Queen citizens, and the people who want to move away have to apply to leave, despite the fact that our lands, territories, and allies would not mind the immigrants."

"Isn't the way that they are treating their people illegal? I mean can't the United Council of Kingdoms do something?" Daring asked in frustrated confusion.

Dexter shook his head. "These four small kingdoms that we're talking about don't belong to the UCK, and because of the strict laws that prohibit the UCK from interfering in kingdoms that don't belong to it, their hands are tied on the matter. Plus there's the fact that these kingdoms are super tiny and of little consequence to most other realms, almost all of the wealth that these lords get is from outside kingdom investments and shares in businesses, there is no direct trade to them going on that can be taken away to hurt these guy's cash flow, so unless we can nail them by name on substantial evidence from attacks against the Queen lands, there is literally nothing the law can do to these guys."

"The lords of these kingdoms still run under the elitist and better race philosophies of the past." Apple sighed. "They believe that because they were born into royalty they are deserved special privileges over everybody else. It's like stepping backwards in time to the dark days of our past where many human kingdoms treated their people much like these guys are treating theirs."

"We are fighting back." Raven pointed out. "But discreetly, and… sometimes illegally. Underground railroads, sending aide and people who can teach the commoners to read to the resistance groups, and often if it is the parent's wish we send golems that look like their human children back from our schools for the headcount and then the parents can choose to activate the self-destruct mechanism where it appears that by some sort of sickness or accident the golem-child "dies", mostly "fooling" the officials into taking that child off of their list and thus the family is not liable for their child running away from the country. We've got several hundred permanent residents residing in schools scattered all over my family's and our allies' kingdoms."

"It sounds like there should have been a citizen revolt against the governments years ago." Apple commented. "What's stopping them from doing just that."

"Foreign mercenaries." Raven replied grimly. "The main lords have enough money to contract enough boots on the ground to keep the masses in check and to guard them from assassination attempts from their enemies… and sometimes from each other."

"Is your kingdom's efforts to help their people the reason why they're after you like… this?" Apple asked motioning to the image on Dexter's computer screen.

Raven shook her head. "I don't know… maybe it's that, maybe it's because they think that they can get away with plundering our lands and selling off the goods to be found there? To be honest we don't know what their motivations are; with or without the protection of the Grand Coven and High Council, we are still members of the UCK and even as a fairytale kingdom, once the body count on our end gets to a certain degree the rest of your guy's kingdoms would have stepped in. It just doesn't make sense for these people to have started this with us in the first place."

"Is greed and profits over the sale of war munitions a good reason?" Dexter asked.

"What are you talking about?" Raven furrowed her brow.

"The Kingdoms of Ever After have been at relative peace for centuries." Daring murmured while rubbing Raven's back soothingly. "Only a very few guilds have the resources and license to make magical and non-magical machines of war, …and there is only one independent business not attached to any large organization, but has the facilities to make thousands of weapons per hour… you said the other day that these creeps have some sort of method of weaponizing space rocks, if knowledge of this was able to get out to the public other kingdoms would have little choice but to get their hands on as much war materials as possible to essentially wipe out the threat, and some neutral party has been supplying those mercenaries in those kingdoms with weapons, but aside from this one business kingdoms have to apply for permission with the guilds to get a certain amount of weapons."

Raven furrowed her brow. "There's a business out there that has facilities even more efficient than High Councilman Tomak's business?" She asks confused.

"There is no other place in Ever After that turns out the best high quality weapons as quickly than High Councilman Tomak's blacksmithing warehouses." Daring told the witch seriously.

It takes a few seconds for the witch to connect the dots. "That- no but he's a warlock!" She cries out in dismay.

"Who's Tomak?" Apple asks Dexter.

"Some big-shot in the Witch's High Council. Most of his wealth comes from his business that produces things like swords and shields for schools and private sectors." Dexter shrugs his shoulders.

"I already don't like him." Apple declared with a sniff. "All of those High Council creeps sound incredibly out of touch if you ask me."

"But he's a _warlock_!" Raven emphasizes to the room again. "Sure he and my grandmother, and my great grandmother, and my great-great grandmother never saw eye to eye, and there have been some pretty vicious words spoken back and forth for ages but to go and resurrect a radical group that specializes in hunting his own kind… for eventual profit? How could anyone do that?"

"Somebody from that High Council." Apple muttered darkly. "Don't glare at me like that missy, especially with what those lunatics had been planning on doing to you for no good reason!"

"How had that feud between your family and him start out?" Dexter asked Raven kindly.

"My great-great grandmother broke off her betrothal to him and ended up taking the White family's former court jester as her queen's consort." Raven shrugged bewilderedly. "Grandmother says that Tomak never got over the sting, even though our ancestor had made it clear from the get-go that she was not the least bit interested in Tomak, he got especially troublesome right after my ancestor, the former jester, died of old age and she still refused to give Tomak the time of day. And he never got a chance to woo her for long because not long after her consort died the original high Council chambers had been attacked by a horde of lightning breathing Jabborwocky that had escaped Wonderland somehow. She had been there at the time on a last minute errand, and had rushed in to help people get out to safety while fighting off the horde, she had managed to slay the beasts but she, along with the chambers, had been destroyed in the explosion."

The room was silent for a moment.

"A court jester managed to catch the eye of an Evil Queen?" Daring asked the air.

"Well that would explain where Raven got her rebellious streak from." Dexter muttered. "It's inherited."

"See? All of those council people are crazy creeps!" Apple insisted.

Raven sighed despairingly. Honestly royalty sometimes… marrying a court jester was what they focused on?

"Tomak's grudge against your ancestor not marrying him makes this last bit of news regarding your grandfather make more sense." Dexter shook his head tiredly.

"What about my grandfather?" Raven demanded.

"He had been seduced away from your grandmother." Daring sighed. "Not that it makes up for his blatant disregard for her feelings, or his stupidity in letting someone like her go, but essentially what the account tells us is that these people thought that your grandfather would be useful to them in some way so they tempted him away with the promises of a human wife and a title and then proceeded to throw their daughters at him. The plan had backfired when lords from other kingdoms thought that he would have been a good ally for their families and started to do the same thing, the tone of the writing suggests that this whole plan had turned out to be a bust but your enemy did salvage a small win over your grandmother…"

"They threatened to kill him." Dexter finished soberly. "If your grandmother ever stepped a foot near him."

"…Did this account just happen to tell you my grandfather's name?" Raven asked, breathless.

Dexter shook his head. "It's all in codenames, even your grandmother's name, the only reason why we know that this is referencing your grandparents is that Daring recognized the story from the little bit you told him several weeks ago."

"Is there any indication that my grandfather had… grown sympathetic to my land's enemy cause?" Raven swallowed.

"The account did not say that he had been swayed to either side." Daring shrugged. "It just ended on a rather vague note that told future members that if your grandmother was ever seen with your grandfather, to attempt to kill the both of them in order to send a message to the rest of your family."

"So that's why they have this website with all of these names and documents." Raven stepped back from Daring and put her hands on her hips. "It's propaganda as well as a way to keep the underlings in line because their real names were advertised in connection to those crimes! Once you're in, you can't get out because you did something bad that they can hold over you for the rest of your life!"

"Underhanded, unusual, and cruel but highly effective." Apple agreed while she crossed her arms.

"Now the question is what are you going to do about all of this- hey Nevermore stop playing with the keypad!" Dexter interrupted himself in favor of prying the plastic strip of fancy light up buttons away from the dragon's claws, Nevermore had obviously gotten bored with exploring the boy's dorm and set about looking for entertainment elsewhere.

"Good question." Raven muttered as she began to pace. "We can't nab the main culprits in this due to lack of evidence, war is just simply an option that must be avoided at all costs, I have to talk to Lizzie about what we should do about Wonderland, and we can't risk going to the High Council, Grand Coven, or the UCK for help and resources due to the risk of our enemies getting wind of what we currently know and being forced to go to war regardless of our efforts not to."

"So is there anything that you can do?" Dexter asked while he petted the purring dragon in his arms.

Apple raised a brow. "She could always ask an unconventional source for help…"

XXX

" _Ordinem de Malleus Maleficarum et Maleficorum_ , Also known as the _order of the hammer against witches and warlocks_ , is an ancient order of witch hunters from the period of Ever After history where human attempted to annihilate everything having to do with magic, it was thought to have been disbanded centuries ago." Raven explained in a clinically detached monotone, her haunted eyes looking off into space as she addressed the room. Everyone present had been asked to come at lunchtime.

"As you can see from what I have told you the situation in my kingdom is complicated and dangerous, if this makes you uncomfortable I will not hold it against you if you wanted nothing to do with this, I am only asking for your help both because you are all already privy to my situation with Faybelle and… I- _we_ could really use some outside off the books help in this."

To everyone's surprise Duchess was the first to speak. "Isn't there a Wonderlandian law stating that if persons responsible for gross mistreatment of sentient life are found within Wonderland's boarders then those people can get arrested by decree of the queen?"

"Yes." Lizzie acknowledged. "The law is especially enforced when it concerns our countrymen and allies." She casts Raven a near pleading look. "And since our witches have discovered that the fake-curse can be lifted from someone of the same bloodline as its caster…"

"There was never a doubt in my mind that I'll be freeing Wonderland from its giant blot in the sky." Raven assured to the three Wonderlandians present. "I owe it to my clan for them to be able to return home and the Wonderland people have dealt with more than enough over a fight that was not theirs to be forced in the middle of. The question is how do we smuggle ourselves to Wonderland without the Headmaster getting wind of it."

"We aren't going to tell the Headmaster about this?" Blondie asked; Cupid and Humphrey mirrored the blonde reporter's incredulous look. Because wouldn't something this serious need to be handled by the Headmaster?

"I wouldn't if I was in Raven's situation." Tiffany pursed her lips in a sour expression. "He's way too judgmental."

"He's a wildcard that we can't afford dealing with right now." Ashlynn explained as she leaned against Hunter. "His main job is to ensure his student's safety, he could very simply put Raven on campus arrest and not let her out of his sight regardless of her ability to reverse her mother's spell."

"Headmaster Grimm is technically a neutral party in all of this so if it looks like Raven or any of the rest of us will be in danger he has the right to lock our main player up in a tower if it comes to it." Briar nodded her head towards Raven.

"And there is the fact that he still hasn't a clue that she's married to me and that I now hold her old title." Faybelle pointed out as she walked over and put a possessive arm around Raven's waist (causing Apple to glare stormily at the fairy and Daring to step a little further away from the enraged princess). "The noise he'll make about that will no doubt be heard all the way to the village. Something that we should try to avoid as best we can until after Wonderland is free."

"And just how are we going to smuggle Raven to Wonderland?" Cerise asked. "Isn't it quarantined?"

"Not exactly…" Mira piped up. "This world and Wonderland have evolved to share a symbiotic relationship with each other, Wonderland providing this world with the wonder magic it needs to survive, and our world providing Wonderland with the magic it needs to keep itself stabilized- or as stabilized as Wonderland can get- the Grimm brothers had to leave one door open between the worlds for that to happen. She'll be going through the well of wonder."

Lizzie furrowed her brows. "How did you-?"

"Yesterday a sweet little lady by the name of Ginger, she's a fantastic cook by the way, asked me to help her see if it was possible to locate some Wonderland water for this recipe she wants to try for the spring fair cooking competition, after doing some research in the library we discovered a book that talked all about the subject on the portals between here and Wonderland, since the well was the only one that doesn't stay in one place all the time we decided that we could try checking it out. Somehow we managed to find it within the first hour and… that's when we accidentally discovered what happens when you fall into it." Mira chuckled sheepishly.

XXX

 _Several hours earlier…_

"Hey I'm actually getting some reception from down here." Mira grinned at her phone loopilly from her perch on the shoulder of a white armored figure. She looked around the dimly lit cavernous space filled with dark walkways and waterfalls flowing in all directions until she spotted her second, smaller, companion walking tentatively beside the fully armored one.

"Mira I'm so sorry, if I hadn't asked you to help me look for Wonderland water you wouldn't have bumped your head!" Ginger apologized for what must have been the tenth time.

"Hey, I was the one who thought that it would be a good idea to jump out of that teapot and onto that bed of mushrooms, my head injury was totally my fault not yours, hex I should be thanking you again for patching up my head." Mira assured (once again), pointing the bandage in question. "Overall it's been a pretty fun night… although the violent heard of clam-things with feet had been pretty weird…"

"Thank you for saving us from them." Ginger told the armored figure with a grateful dreamy little smile.

"All in a day's work milady's." The white knight assured. "The portal for which you seek to go back home is up ahead though I do warn you that it is… an eventful trip to take."

"If it's anything like the trip here I believe you." Mira sighed as she fingered her bandaged head gingerly.

XXX

"Is that how you hurt your head?" Sparrow Hood asked in the ensuing silence with a raised brow.

"It was… a very interesting night." Mira stated cryptically. "Though we were lucky enough to come across this charming local called the white knight who was ever so gracious to save us from the clams with feet and show us the way back."

Darling ducked her head, hiding a smile.

"I actually have a map that'll lead us to the well…" Lizzie revealed, casting Mira an odd look. "And I'm certain that my mother won't have difficulty in setting something up so that we can end up where we need to be… Did you just say that you managed to escape from the notorious oyster bandits?"

"Oh! They were bandits? That explains why they kept chanting the word "monies" at us!" Mira grinned crookedly.

"You're a one of a kind sort of gal Mira Shards." Hunter shook his head and laid his nose into Ashlynn's hair in disbelief.

"Speaking of the spring fair, I think that might be the best time to sneak into Wonderland." Blondie spoke up. "I mean with all the attention drawn to the rides and the events the Grimm brothers won't notice if a few of us disappear into the crowds and not been seen again until way later!"

"And if there are a few people in the know here, they can act as a distraction so that the brothers won't think to start asking questions if they do notice something off." Apple smiled innocently as she grabbed Raven's arm (and casting Faybelle a smug glare). "The question now is; who is going to escort Raven to Wonderland?"

XXX

"I can see why that Mira girl would want to come along, she's from your kingdom and she knows defense magic." Faybelle spoke as she dragged raven into her dorm after classes had finished for the day, the fairy spun on her heel and closed the door with one hand while effectively trapping the witch between her and the door. "But I just can't wrap my head around how that preppy little masochist wormed her way into the vote!"

"Apple knows how to work a crowd." Raven sighed, oddly relaxed under the other's annoyed stare. "And she's dealing with some confused feelings revolving around me right now so it only makes sense that she'd want to come along."

"Confused feelings?" Faybelle raised a brow.

"Her parents unintentionally messed her up in a bad way in her head." Raven explained gently. "Her father spun her lies about how in love he and her mother were and her mother seems to have been trying to live through Apple in ways that she either failed to do while in high school or in the ways that she misses doing in her high school career. Apple, as you well know, has just found out that pretty much everything her parents had told her was a lie and she's… carefully trying to pick through what remains of her shattered illusions about the future without hurting herself… or me."

"You?" Faybelle murmurs, trailing a finger down the witch's soft cheek.

Raven leaned tiredly into the door slightly, casually, not feeling awkward or alarmed by their closeness. "Apple is trying to get over this complex that her parents, namely her mother, have given her… you know that whole fixation on me poisoning her and acting evil towards her thing."

"Ah." Faybelle nodded in understanding. "Has she realized just how much of a loon she appeared to be whenever she started going on about that?"

"Actually I think that she's just starting to realize just how… uh… erotic and perverse that whole notion was…" Raven grimaced and blushed. "Apparently when her mother used to bully my mom… my mother started to poison Snow White with a combination of a sleeping spell and a… dreaming fantasy spell, just to get some hours of peace… only instead of getting freaked out by the things that my mother had intentionally put into those dreams, which were designed to creep Snow White out, um… apparently Snow White got addicted to those dreams…? And after a while Snow White began bugging my mother even more just so that she could be poisoned."

"Addicte-?" Faybelle shook her head in disbelief. "What did your mother put into those dreams that got her princess so crazed?"

"Well I wasn't given much details but according to Prince Charming my mother sort of knew that he swayed more towards the male gender, even before he did, so she designed the dreams to be Snow White's perfect version of a happily ever after… but instead of her assigned prince being in her dreams she got a male version of my mother instead."

The fairy broke out laughing, hugging the witch close and snickering into the other's shoulder. "Hooo that's a good one! I have way more begrudging respect for your mother now! …But wait didn't you say that Snow White was addicted to these dreams? How can that be if she was stuck with a male version of your mom?"

"I don't think that she ever realized that leather-clad bad-boy figure in her dreams _was_ a male version of my mother." Raven sighed, looking up at the ceiling guiltily. "And… even if Prince Charming didn't want to admit that something was off with their impending engagement and marriage… I'm pretty sure that Snow White must have at least sensed that it wouldn't turn out well. Knowing my mother, she would have designed the character in the spell to be embarrassingly flirtatious, bewitching, and… sexual… basically everything that one expects to be highly embarrassing and too dark for a pure maiden to ever want to get close to but…"

"But that concept is bullshit because maidens are human, and despite even the most drastic of propaganda there is no way of completely eradicating the _need_ for _genuine_ intimacy." Faybelle giggled a little more, pulling the witch further inside. "Instead of a punishment your mother accidentally did her tormentor a favor! So I guess that things did not go well when your mom stopped making the poisoned apples?"

"Actually I was surprised to find out that my mother felt obligated enough to keep making them for Snow White all the way up to their story." Raven blinked when she was pulled down with the fairy to lie side by side on the bed. "I'm not sure if I should call it an act of honor or an act of pity."

"Hnm." Faybelle hummed soberly, looking at the ceiling. "And then she married Prince Charming and ended up with a not at all good happy ending… and then Apple came along and her mother waxed poetically about the happiest times about her high school- and perhaps the happiest time in her life- experience, which was your mother poisoning her and giving her dreams of a happy life, along with the idea that being the most perfect princess will ensure you the best future possible… that's just… severely messed up. Even by human standards."

"Apple's been left with some really confused feelings about me." Raven mumbled, resting her head on the fairy's shoulder and curling up into the other's side, seeking comfort. "She's not sure that her feelings towards me are those of deep friendship… or something more. All of that… brainwashing that they did to her as a kid has sort of put me, and all the things that I'm supposed to represent as this… idol figure in her mind. She's always sort of seen me as the one who was supposed to grant her happiness and all of her desires by fulfilling my roll as the Evil Queen… and now? She knows that she sees me as a friend, and someone she trusts but… I don't think that she knows just how to categorize me, or how she's going to deal with seeing me for me and not this unattainable icon."

"Bet all of that makes you glad that you weren't born a human princess in one of those kingdoms." Faybelle commented, wrapping an arm around the witch.

"Actually I kinda get how Snow White feels." Raven admitted sadly. "My family… before this all happened… we used to be happy, crazy but happy. But then it all turned sideways and everything, even my memories turned bleak; there are so many good memories that I have of my mother but then all the bad stuff happened and suddenly all that I could see were the bad things and what I had lost. I don't want to feel that way anymore, I want to be happy, I want my kingdom to be safe, and I want… I just want my happy family back. To be able to remember the happy without the tragic." The witch hiccupped, a few tears slipping down her face.

"I'm not sure if that's exactly similar but for what it's worth you've come a long way to make that dream happen." Faybelle assured, holding the witch more securely to her side until Raven was able to get a hold of herself and stop crying.

"Sorry." Raven apologized. "Sometimes it just gets to be a little much."

"Why did you never grow to hate Apple?" Faybelle asked turning over. "I mean, sure you were able to hold your ground and the sheer stubbornness of your will counteracted hers enough for there to be some semblance of common ground in the form of mutual respect for an adversary, but she repeatedly kept crossing the line, kept drudging up all of those hurtful memories even though she knew better, even though _you knew_ that _she knew_ better."

The fairy hefted herself up until she was kneeling over Raven, her hands and legs on either side of the witch's body. "Honor does not demand that a villain has to put up with that sort of punishment, can't wash their hands of their counterpart until the fairytale- or in your case, find Apple a new villain to take your role and leave- you had the right, you had the means, you had a future Evil Fairy who would've gleefully spirited you away and gloated to anybody that would listen that I had been the one to make a proper witchy maiden wife out of you and steal your title away. You would have been stored safely away somewhere far away until we got this far into our marriage, then you would have been shipped off to Hathor Academy to join your long missed relatives and live out your days there not as the daughter of the Evil Queen, but as the bride of a Thorn."

"If Apple hadn't had her sudden life crisis then I might have done just that." Raven smiled ruefully. "But I don't think that I could have ever truly hated her, more likely I would have packed up and left more for her sake than mine, I was incredibly worried about her mental state when she continued to persist that I poison her, admittedly at first I had thought that she was being a little too cruel with her teasing the first few weeks we lived together but after I pointed out that it would be too troublesome for me to get detention for breaking the no poisoning rule that the school has… and then she started going on and scheming ways for me to get away with it and that's when I knew that she was serious… and that's when I got very worried."

"Uncharacteristically cruel for her to be demanding you get into serious trouble just so that she could get her jollies off of you conforming to her perfect villain ideal that only exists in her head…" Faybelle pursed her lips. "Though would you have been really fine with leaving her alone in my care?"

"I'd have no choice at that point." Raven shook her head looking troubled. "It started to get to the point where Apple was just consumed with the idea of me being her perfect villain that she wasn't thinking seriously about what would happen after my part was over, she never talked about Daring, she never talked about her plans for her kingdom, she never even talked about our relationship after the story! The only thing that she cared about was this imaginary ideal of and Evil Queen! It had gotten to a point where I was starting to wonder whether or not me simply attending Ever After High was going to end up doing more harm to her than good! She probably would have thrown all sorts of fits and ended up hating me like I was the most horrible creature to ever exist if I left and sent you to replace me… but I do believe that it would have been… better for her to have you as her villain. You would have been able to prepare her for her most desired role far better than I ever could… better than she would have ever let me."

"But now she's changed." Faybelle observed. "You don't have to worry about her so much."

"She's blossoming into her full potential." Raven smiled, almost as if she were at peace. "It's painful for her but at the same time it's good for her, like all the dead growth has been cut away leaving her the opportunity to flourish. I am so proud of her and how well she's been able to stand up on her own after all of the horrible truths coming to light. Daring too, he's become more real and genuine, more of a charming prince than ever. It just… makes me so happy to see them have a fighting chance at true happiness!"

"And your feelings for Apple?" Faybelle asks leaning closer.

"Still complicated, but it hurts less to think about the choice of either loving her or getting over her… maybe some space will give me perspective on that." Raven seemed to deflate slightly. "It'll be a matter of days to weeks before the Headmaster finds out about most everything and I will have to transfer to a new school very quickly. Somehow… I get the feeling that he won't expel me so much as keep me under constant watch until he becomes satisfied that there is literally nothing that he can do to stop you from becoming the Evil Queen… that and I don't think he'll be too appreciative of us traveling to Wonderland."

"So you're thinking that we should probably arrange for your surprise transfer just after you free Wonderland?" Faybelle guessed.

"I think that its high time I give that poor man some peace from all the trouble my presence has brought him." Raven grinned teasingly making Faybelle laugh. "Besides I miss my relatives and my grandmother, and now that I am no longer a villain I _need_ to catch up on all of the witch studies that I'm lacking in my training!"

"Stay with me for the night." Faybelle commanded. "As happy as it makes you that Apple is starting to be more truthful with herself and kinder to you, I still need to remind her that you are married to _me_ , and I'd like to keep _my_ wife close during times of calm before the impending insanity that lurks around this place like a dense fog strikes us again."

"I wonder if things will be quieter at Hathor." Raven mused as she stretched lazily until she was in a more comfortable position.


	29. Chapter 29

A/n: Alright, I've gotta be completely honest.

I have no idea who's going to win this, Apple or Faybelle. Initially I had started this as a Rapple fic, but… I'm starting to like this other Raven/Faybelle pairing too… and looking back on the comments people seem pretty split between the two too (some of you want to see Raven end up with both or neither, which is a possibility).

I think that I should have it all decided after I finish with Wonderland, I'll just go with whatever makes a better story… not that I'm going to reveal anything to the readers until way later in the fic… it'll be a surprise.

By the way, cannon Snow White, from the series, she scares me. she really, really scares me. Like I had an image in my head of her being a ditzy and fair… well maiden. She isn't. in fact I'd go so far to say that she's kind of a psychopath.

I now ship Evil Queen/ Snow White, they are like a match made in… well I wouldn't say hell (they aren't that extreme), but neither of them came from a very _nice_ place.

XXX

"I don't think that your mother was the one to have cursed you." Apple decided one afternoon where both princess and witch had agreed to some well deserved lazy time by hiding from the world in their dorm room.

"I take it you finished reading my mother's thesis thingy." Raven sighed as she flopped next to Apple on the princess's bed. The witch was wearing a grey and lavender hooded dress; one of the few casual outfits of the witch's that Apple didn't have a vendetta against.

"It's brilliant, it's innovative, and I just can't see the person who wrote this being the same person who cursed you out of malicious intent. Maybe she just wanted to protect you, make you out to look scary to anybody that might be watching and just hoped that you could learn to get around it?" The princess shrugged.

"Maybe." Raven hummed into the comforter, swinging her bare legs and feet lazily in the air, the witch had a feeling that there was more to it but didn't really have much evidence or desire to counteract Apple's nicer theory. "But unless I get a chance to ask her it just might stay a mystery."

"If we can convince the Grimm brothers that she should be exonerated to the point of where she could be allowed visitors, I'm sure that she'll tell you." Apple stated, continuing to look over the papers in her hands. "I know I certainly wouldn't mind asking her some questions involving this! Such inventions should be at least allowed to serve the common good, regardless of the inventor being imprisoned in a mirror for certain crimes."

"She might enjoy having someone there to talk shop with." Raven stretched and rolled onto her side, staring at the princess for a moment. "I'm going to miss this place."

"Do you really have to go?" Apple pouted sadly.

"Yes." Raven nodded. "It's going to be a change but Grandmother and all of my cousins are expecting me now. It will be nice to see them again."

"You really miss them. Your family." The princess deflated slightly.

"We've kept sort-of in touch but… yeah I do miss them, I miss them a lot, it was so lonely for so long just having Maddie be my one tangible friend that I could touch, and that didn't see my mother in the place of… me." The witch murmured, staring depressingly at a pillow.

Apple looked away guiltily. "If I had used common sense instead of just assuming-"

"Don't blame yourself for that." Raven soothed. "You barely knew me back then anyway so how could you tell?"

"I could tell enough that you were sad and tormented." Apple grimaced. "But I was told that was how Evil Queens were supposed to be so I just didn't think to see you as another living thing. For so long you had been this… physical manifestation of an ideal and it never occurred to me to see you as anything else, even when you were staring me in the eyes and telling me that you didn't want to, that you were _allowed_ to be different."

"I'm surprised that you thought about me at all before Legacy Year." Raven looked up at the princess, shyly playing with her fingers. "You rarely went near me before then."

Apple huffed a slow breath out of her nose. "I was afraid to, not because I was afraid of you, but because I thought that I wasn't perfect enough to try. You were-… you were like a god almost in my eyes a creature that wielded magic and who was so mysterious I just… you were the one who was supposed to make everything better, the one who would bewitch me with your charms and give me the forbidden fruit, and magically make my happy ending just appear when I awoke. And then I hear all of these stories from my mother about being poisoned and the dreams she had while she was asleep! Future predictions, she called them, of what I had to look forward to."

Apple put down the papers and laid her head back into her pillows, hiding her blushing face behind her hands. "Even when you denied destiny I still couldn't see you as another person with feelings of your own. You were still this deity figure who just appeared to have decided to be vengeful towards me for some reason. You were larger than life and it made me so… disappointed to think of you any other way. And now that I've broken myself out of that idealism I only find myself liking you all the more, you're touchable now. I'm deeply embarrassed with myself though for once thinking of you in the same terms of a god and unhealthily obsessing over one tiny aspect of a story."

"I'm glad that you see me as a person too." Raven confessed. "I was getting really worried about you at one point. I mean you were practically on you hands and knees that one time you got me that spell book on forbidden magical poisons."

"Ugh!" Apple curled up into a little mortified ball on her side. "Don't remind meeee! You hid yourself under your bed and refused to come out for hours! And Briar had happened upon me at a very awkward moment to boot! I was in soooo much trouble!"

"Did you ever fantasize about your married life with Daring?" Raven asked, having long been curious about the subject since the princess had spent most days chattering excitedly about Raven poisoning her.

"Vaguely…" Apple waved her hand limply. "In the back of my mind I knew that he was going to be my spouse but um… to be honest he was more Prince Charming than Daring Charming, and he was nothing more than this fuzzy image of a smiling boy. You had always been more important to me and… well to be honest I never gave Daring much thought."

"I kinda feel bad for him now." Raven frowned. "I stole away his princess without even trying. How sad."

"I'm pretty sure he'd be even more sad if he had to marry me." Apple flinched. "I mean right now while we're all in high school he's got some freedom, distractions if you will, the most that we have ever talked to each other is when I told him to play the field while he could until we had to get married, other than that our encounters were all show, he'd smile, pretending that I was the only girl in the world for him, and I'd pretend to swoon over the thought, pretty much what basic training had taught us to do. I'm afraid that I'd probably be the one ending up making Daring incredibly miserable in our marriage, what with my fixation with you and my neglecting getting to know him better."

"I would have missed you guys." Raven murmured. "Wherever I ended up, I would have missed the better times where I could have been allowed to say hello to you two casually and without a disguise."

"We're going to Wonderland tomorrow." Apple reached out and hugged Raven close. "And after that I'm going to visit you lots, no matter what Faybelle says."

"You do realize that she's not going to be at all pleased by that, she's taken to flirting and touching me in an intimate manner in the halls now, she's trying to prove to you that I'm her wife in a very fairy sort of way." Raven pointed out.

"Yeah well she should realize that she doesn't have complete control over you, and that token marriages don't mean squat when it comes to romance. I just don't want you getting hurt by her need to secure you as her ally and bragging trophy!" Apple huffed irritated.

"And you both should realize that I don' have the luxury of getting flustered or being indecisive over two girls fighting over me, so whatever bug is itching you two I am not going to be around enough to be able to have an active roll in it." Raven grumbled exasperatedly.

"Well yeah, you're going to be busy with witch training, your family, and kingdom stuff, we both know that." Apple assured. "You'll be too preoccupied to do much of anything with what me and Faybelle are fighting about… aside from the fact that we are both fighting over you in a way."

"Well that didn't sound foreboding at all." Raven hissed sarcastically.

XXX

"Something bad is about to happen." Milton twitched as he walked beside his brother around the setting up of the fairgrounds.

"Did you suddenly acquire the intuition of a witch while I was gone?" Giles joked, looking at their surroundings.

"My granddaughter caught me trying to get a better look at the tattoos on her hands earlier today, she didn't put up a fuss when I asked to see them, and she said something about it being a matter of time until I figured out what they represented and the deal she had made. Over these past months I've learned that she's only ever really helpful or pretends to listen to me talk about her destiny when something is going to happen! Something that I'm not going to like!" The elder man ranted paranoid.

"Well you would know, you've been shadowing her for weeks now." Giles reminded dryly. "When are you going to talk to Elenore? Or tell Raven that you're her grandfather? I'm starting to get bored with your sulking around and making excuses and Raven has been giving us weirded out looks for a while now."

"After I figure out why there is this sudden need for my granddaughter to be decorated up like a painted egg." Milton defended. "She said that she's doing it for her kingdom's sake and we know how many issues they're going through right now. Me finding out is the only way that I can get some insight into what's going on! Nobody in that family trusts me enough to tell me anything! I'll admit that it is my fault that it is the case, but that doesn't mean that I don't worry about my child and grandchild any less and… Whatever is happening, it was scary enough that Elenore didn't tell you that I was a father, or hit me over the head with the news at some very calculated and planned inconvenient time."

"Well you're running out of time." Giles crossed his arms. "According to Raven's written account of what tattoos we should be expecting, she's got her neck and face left before this ritual deal is complete, and that could happen at any time!"

"Relax, I think that I should have the answer we seek in the shipment of books that have just arrived to my office. I would have probably gotten an answer sooner but all of the books that relate to ritual tattoos and contract symbols keep getting checked out from the library!" Milton tried to assure his brother.

"And if you can't find an answer by Monday?" Giles challenged, giving a subtle hint that was the deadline before he went out and did something drastic on his own.

"I'll tell Miss Queen that she's my granddaughter and after whatever results from that meeting I'll contact Elenore and beg her, if need be, to tell me just what is going on." Milton relented looking nervous at the prospect.

XXX

"Please see if you can sneak this onto the Headmaster's desk. He should at least know that my mother isn't all that evil and I suspect that he knows who my grandfather is and can judge whether or not we can trust him enough to warn him about the danger he's in." Raven handed Kitty and Blondie a folder and a mirror-drive.

"He won't even know that we were there." Kitty grinned.

"Thank you, see you at the well." Raven grinned back.

XXX

"You know this tradition of wrapping up the trees with ribbons reminds me of a springtime tradition we have back home which involves young children dancing around a pole while they wrap it with ribbons." Raven commented brightly to Apple as she finished tying off her assigned ribbon decorated tree.

"You're talking about dancing around the maypole right?" Edward Spider asked from his tree, which was to the other side of the witch's.

"Yes that's exactly what I'm talking about!" Raven smiled warmly at to boy. "How do you know of it?"

"My momma wanted me to be exposed to all sorts of different cultures and customs, so she keeps dragging me and my mama to all of these festivals and celebrating a bunch of different holidays at home." Edward smiled fondly at the memory.

"What a good idea your momma has." Apple praised. "That sound like it was a lot of fun for you growing up."

"It was." Edward puffed his chest out in pride.

"Um sorry to interrupt." Humphrey called as he rushed over. "I have to speak to Apple and Raven privately for a moment. It's very important, I need their help out on the fairgrounds."

Apple and Raven exchanged knowing looks.

Things were coming along just as planned.

XXX

" _What_?" The Headmaster's shout resounded through his chambers.

"Ah! Did you finally found something? Or did you come across another spider?" Giles perked up cheerfully.

"She's getting married!" The Headmaster yelped as he ran out of his study in alarm.

"Who's getting married? Elenore?" Giles blinked in confusion.

"No! Miss Queen! Those tattoos on her hands are strictly used for brides about to get married!" Milton shook his brother by the shoulders.

"Oh my, they grow up so fast." Giles sighed despairingly. "Well she is seventeen- brother? Brother where are you going?"

"To get to the bottom of this!" The Headmaster snapped over his shoulder as he ran out of his office, Giles soon following.

Kitty and Blondie peered over the Headmaster's desk with equal wide-eyed looks.

XXX

"He knows!" Kitty ran up to the group standing idly around the clearing. "He knows about Raven getting married!"

"Who knows?" Faybelle demanded.

"The Headmaster! He's looking for Raven as we speak! And boy was he in a state!" Kitty stated looking impressed, which did not bode well, when Kitty was impressed by something it rarely boded well. "Blondie's warning the others but we have to move quickly!"

"Our ride will be here any minute." Mira assured absently touching a finger to the amulet she wore around her neck that would help disguise her magical signature, just incase she needed to use her powers, it just wouldn't do for Clawstorm to be found out this soon, especially in Wonderland.

"It's going to be Wonderladiful to be back home again!" Maddie cheered and giggled.

XXX

"So…" Hunter began, running a finger over Nevermore's back, the dragon peeking curiously at the fairgrounds all around her with wide little dragon eyes. "Raven got married. To Faybelle. Never would have guessed that outcome."

"I don't approve of it either." Ashlynn sighed. "But it's not like she had much choice, it was either marry Faybelle or be forced to live in the woods as a nameless enchantress."

"Still, I'm worried about Faybelle's scheme in all of this." Hunter muttered. "When she's in a deal with someone she tends to go the extra mile to squeeze every last bit of what she can get out of it."

"Oh she said upfront that she plans on trying to seduce Raven into staying her wife for a longer period of time since Raven has proven herself so useful as a spouse." Ashlynn informed nonchalantly.

"Does Raven know about this?" Hunter asked in equal parts concern and protectiveness.

"From what Briar and I have seen she's handling Faybelle like a champ, it's Apple who's flipping out over this. Apparently the two of them are fighting over who gets her. Raven's trying to ignore it of course, but ah… it's not going to be that easy for long." Ashlynn shrugged helplessly.

"Yeah well I don't like either option. Faybelle is a lunatic! And as far as I can tell, from the downcast looks and the constant flinches whenever the subject of Snow White's tale comes up, Apple has not yet figured out what she wants outta life. Why can't Raven attract somebody whose both stable and knows who the hex they are? …No offence meant to your friend sweetness but Apple should be more concerned with figuring out her life before trying to lay claim onto Raven." Hunter complained as he gently pulled Nevermore away from a booth, just in time before the little dragon managed to swipe a cone of cotton candy into her tiny thieving claws.

"I know that you don't mean anything malicious by it sweetie, and you do hold a point with both of them, as terrible it is for me to say. Do you need me to help you adjust her harness?" Ashlynn asked, smirking slightly as Hunter struggled to keep Nevermore from crawling up his head to try her luck at the cotton candy again.

"You're too kind." Hunter spoke around the foot using his lip as a step.

"Mister Spider said that he saw Mister Dumpty walk in this direction with Miss Queen and Miss White…" The Headmaster and Giles passed by, scanning the crowd for the blond boy.

Ashlynn turned to Hunter. " _Play along_." She hissed under her breath.

" **Raven** _(pet)_ **is pregnant**?" The princess's sudden, loud exclamation causing the two older men to startle and freeze in their tracks.

"Miss Queen is _what_?" The Headmaster's voice pitched a few octaves higher than normal as he rounded on the two teens.

"Raven's pet dragon looks like she's pregnant." Ashlynn blinked at the Headmaster blankly. "Some boy threw a bunch of flowers into the girl's dorms a few days ago and Apple and Raven are having a difficult time keeping Nevermore, Raven's pet dragon, from eating too many of the edible flowers, she's starting to get a gut on her that's making her look pregnant. That's why they're having a bunch of their friends take turns watching her during the day until they've fully cleared out their dorm."

"Wrrrrdle?" Nevermore Looked between Ashlynn and the two startled men as hunter arranged her so that her stomach (which really was visibly extended) was visible to see.

Ashlynn whipped out her phone and took a picture of the dragon. "I was going to send some pictures to a few of my friends." The princess smiled brightly, typing a quick hext to Humphrey, warning him that the Headmaster was looking for him and that he needed to hide. Now.

The Headmaster clutched his chest and turned away to collect himself. He idly wondered why life seemed keen to keep throwing scare tactics and long lost Grimm heirs at him, it was just getting more and more difficult to see Miss Queen as just another student and his daughter as the Evil Queen. Funny how a simple confirmation of genetics brought up all of these latent paternal instincts, quite frankly this whole business left him positively petrified.

Giles smiled fondly at the dragon, reaching a finger out for the creature to sniff. "Raven's grandmother had a dragon familiar while she attended the school as well, if I remember correctly I believe that Raven mentioned that Nevermore was one of Nightshade's hatchlings, very good news for this particular species. Along with being one of the choice dragon breeds of the Queen royal family it is also one of the most endangered. You can only find a handful of wild colonies scattered around Ever After due to poaching and habitat loss. The Queen family has an extensive conservation program for the smaller endangered dragons and other creatures native to their lands."

"So that makes Nevermore a royal princess!" Hunter perked up, snuggling the purring dragon to him. "What a special girl you are. Yes you are! Your so precious." Hunter cooed in baby talk.

"Nightshade's hatchling…" The Headmaster murmured remembering Elenore's most cherished childhood familiar, the male dragon used to curl regally around Elenore's shoulders whenever she took him out to the village or one of her and Milton's dates.

"Mister Huntsman, Miss Ella, have you seen Miss Queen anywhere recently?" The Headmaster cleared his throat.

"Not since the fair started sirs." Hunter shrugged. "The Ferris wheel is the highest point here, why don't you take a ride and see if you can spot her from there?"

"Good idea Mister Huntsman." The Headmaster praised before stalking away.

XXX

"Just as wild as the two previous times I went through that thing." Mira confirmed, staring at the pink sky with a dazed grin on her face, she felt a pang of guilt at the sight of a giant swirling poisonous green cloud off to the side of her vision. "That was fun!"

"Are you sure that you aren't related to Briar?" Apple groaned sitting up slowly. "Raven, are you all right?"

"I'm just contemplating how I seem to keep finding myself in these situations." Raven grumbled as she allowed the princess to help her sit up too, the witch leaning heavily on Apple's shoulder as she waited for her nerves to calm down.

"Are we on course?" Faybelle moaned in pain, she had landed on her arm weird and the ground was spinning, but at seeing Apple with her arm around an incapacitated Raven's shoulder the fairy pointedly dragged her body to the side and laid her head in the witch's lap.

"It's been a while since any of us has been back home, our sense of direction is all off kilter." Lizzie reminded softly, she and her fellow countrymen were the only ones standing. "Kitty is calling her mother and seeing if they can pinpoint us, for now we should stay put and await you four to regain your senses before we move along. My subjects and I will keep an eye out, even though things are calm now that could soon change."

"Well if you need any help I think that I'll soon be able to add a witch's touch to our defense." Mira promised, igniting her hand in fiery violet and crimson magical flames.

"My thanks to your offer Mira." Raven blinked blearily at the other witch. "But let's hope that it doesn't come to that, and if it does I urge you to please be careful, I don't want you getting hurt."

"My apologies your lady majesty but if it does come down to it I will protect you with the same loyalty that I would defend my home and your kingdom. I knew the dangers going in, you just focus on freeing Wonderland." Mira extinguished the flame and cast her daughter an apologetic smile.

"Why couldn't I sense your magic?" Faybelle scowled, leaning her head farther back to cast Mira a paranoid look.

"The Enchanted Mirror is sensitive to stray magic." Mira explained, tapping the amulet on her chest. "Rather difficult to teach a witchling to control her powers if the scent of untrained magic is too strong. I always wear this and a few other amulet jewelry that masks my scent so that I won't cause any upset."

"That's quite the achievement." Faybelle admitted. "Learning to use your powers despite them being dampened like that. You must be quite potent."

"So I have been told…" Mira waved her hand in a vague gesture; Clawstorm remembered how her mother used to fondly account the scare Clawstorm used to cause non-magically inclined diplomats and staff when she was just a tiny witchling and just learning to use her powers. One of her mother's favorite tales was the time Clawstorm had been barely two harvests old, she had stripped out of her party dress down to her diaper, lit her entire body up in magical fire, and streaked through the halls of one of the Charming Clan's palaces. Her mother never bothered to explain that it had been her daughter, not a ghost or a lower form of fire fae, which had caused the scene at the summer gala ball.

"I hope that we don't run into any trouble while we're here." Apple looked around nervously.

XXX

"Are you sure that the girl's showers is the best place to hide this thing?" Briar asked, hugging the burlap bag in her arms for dear life.

"Yep. Nobody goes in there. And nobody is going to look in the vents for it, Raven said that the Grimm brothers could only sense the Book if it was nearby and that they were working on ways of increasing their sensitivity to it, and while it is incredibly rare for one of them to be in the girl's dorms… if an emergency happens they will come, we got lucky that they had been so distracted a few days ago when Edward released all of those flowers into the girl's dorms, Giles seemed suspicious though so it probably was a matter of time before they came looking." Cerise confirmed crossing her arms.

"Everybody is at the fair, nobody will take notice of us sneaking through the woods on the long route to the girl's showers." Briar looked around the empty pathway with a sigh.

"Say, do you have any ideas as to why the Headmaster and Giles keep showing up at Raven's classes?" Cerise asked out of the blue. "She's really starting to get creeped out."

"The tattoos have got them spooked." Briar nodded to herself. "A contract that thorough spells something serious going down, and since they should know by now the upset with the Queen land's neighbors, it isn't that hard to guess that serious trouble will soon start coming around. Though why the Headmaster has just been watching Raven from the sidelines as much as he has been doing instead of attempting to ask her upfront what is going on is unclear…"

"He smells scared." Cerise admitted. "And rather mournful, maybe he-"

Cerise was cut off when leaping out of the bushes with a terrified squeak, came a squirrel that darted between their legs, soon followed by a peeved off mountain ram that brushed so closely by the two girls that it caused them both to trip and fall over each other, the bag with the Book of Legends inside flying out of Briar's arms off the path, down a small cliff face and into the awaiting mouth of the Well of Wonder wishing well.

"Aw 'cmon!" Briar growled as Cerise gaped wide-eyed over the cliff's edge. "What are the odds? Are we cursed or something?"

XXX

"Don't go saying stuff like that!" Faybelle hissed to Apple before making to stand up. "You'll jinx us all."

"Any news on our escort?" Raven asked Maddie while standing up herself, cutting off a potential fight between Apple and the fairy.

"We landed just a bit pretty far off course, but don't worry, our childhood friends Bunny and Alistair are nearby see!" Maddie pointed to two approaching figures waving at them from several yards away. "They'll lead us safely to the whatchamacallit sight!"

"Well that's great-" Raven began but flinched and fell back into Mira's arms when a wave of… something hit her senses.

"Something's coming." Mira nearly groaned in irritation when she sensed the Book of Legends coming towards them. Clawstorm unconsciously held her daughter tighter, of all the times that blasted thing had to show up it had to be in dangerous unfamiliar territory.

The approaching two figures began running forward the moment they saw both witch's react violently and nearly collapse.

"Is everything all rig- Woah!" A blonde boy ducked when an object surrounded in a yellow glow flew by his head.

"Alistair, are you okay?" The boy's companion, a blond girl with rabbit ears rushed to the boy's side.

"Oh for the love of-." Clawstorm growled menacingly at the Book of Legends now floating in front of the two of them, wisps of candlelight yellow magic curling around both herself and her daughter almost happily.


	30. Chapter 30

She blamed her father for this; she blamed her father entirely for this. It was all his fault and so long as she drew breath she'd give him _hell_ for this. Clawstorm seethed, Mira's hand batting away at the tiny little wisps of magic wrapping themselves around her limbs as they walked along.

"You fairytale types have any clue as to how to get this thing to stop being so touchy feely?" Mira grouched, playing up the clueless bystander act to the fullest, as if she'd allow the freaking _Book of Legends_ of all things blow her cover just because it suddenly decided to be oddly affectionate.

"I've never heard of the Book acting like this before." Apple glanced at the two witches curiously. "It seems to really like you two."

"Strange considering Mira doesn't have a fairytale and Raven is no longer a fairytale character…" Faybelle looked at the artifact in question suspiciously.

"They're both witches." Kitty shrugged. "Maybe that's got something to do with it."

"How?" Raven asked the sky once again. "Did this suddenly just turn up at a completely random moment? We've been looking high and low for this thing and suddenly it decides to just fly up and turn itself in?"

"It's the magic of Wonderland silly, of course random stuff is going to happen at odd moments!" Maddie giggled, throwing her arms into the air. "It's when the randomness stops that people should start getting worried!"

"Should I be worried that piece of advice made perfect sense?" Faybelle wondered to the air.

A strange looking insect stopped in its flight path to regard the fairy.

"Maybe." It said sagely before moving on.

"Maybe we should warn you that things tend to talk back if they have an answer or if they have something to say." Alistair Wonderland chuckled at the fairy's startled look.

"It's nice to finally meet you." Bunny smiled kindly at Raven. "We've heard so much about you."

"And I you two." Raven smiled back. "Though I wish we could have met under less sensitive circumstances."

"How many of the bad guys have you guys been able to find?" Apple piped up, looking around them wearily.

"A few of the creeps that you're looking for ended up over the years either perishing from lack of experience to our land's dangers or have been arrested on a various selection of unrelated crimes." Alistair reported with a slightly satisfied air. "However, your main baddie Kline and several of his loyal minions are still at large, though don't worry, her highness has issued a bolo on them in her queendom and for other queendoms as well with a pretty substantial reward. Foreigners being hunted in Wonderland never ends well. For them."

"I bet." Mira smiled nervously, Clawstorm felt an uncomfortable shiver run down her spine.

XXX

"So, how have you been?" Sparrow asked Dexter as the two ambled along the paths surrounding the Ferris wheel, keeping close watch on the Grimm brothers who were on the ride.

Dexter placed both of his hands behind his head. "Oddly normal, I'm helping Mira learn how to use modern technology, Darling has beaten both myself and Daring in a number of combat sparring sessions, and Daring is testing out some new creams and cologne that he commissioned Raven to make on me and Darling before the two of them sell Raven's latest formulas to the O' Hairs."

"Is that why you smell like a tree?" Sparrow smirked teasingly.

"That is why I smell like a tree." Dexter confirmed.

Sparrow sighed. "But at least he seems happier than he has been in a while, that pained pouting look that he kept making was not a good look on him. Finding out the truth about the guy he was supposed to represent really did a number on him."

"Darling and I are still a little worried though." Dexter admitted. "He's been avoiding looking at his refection in mirrors."

"Wow, by Daring's standards that is bad." Sparrow grimaced.

"That's not even the most shocking thing, in the past week and a half I think that he's developed an actual crush on somebody! Like with real feelings and everything!" Dexter exclaimed in astonishment.

Sparrow furrowed his brows. "But what about all of those dates that he's been on with all those girls, and what about Apple?" He asked. "Surely he felt something for- …no?"

Dexter continued to shake his head firmly. "Apple was more like his ticket to marrying into a highly influential family and those other girls were just… charming practice. Now though he's admitted that he… doesn't like that kind of attention anymore, made him feel fake and since he's found out that most of those maidens just wanted the ability to brag that they got a date with a future Prince Charming…"

"So… this is like... his first crush? All of those dates and yet this one girl is somehow different enough that she's stolen his heart?" Sparrow asked incredulous.

"She's more of a woman… definitely not a girl…" Dexter coughed. "And she's way different from a maiden, in fact she isn't a maiden at all."

"He's got a thing for a villainy teacher?" Sparrow raised a brow, because he knew that the only grown women who were around the high school, and who weren't maidens, were the professors who taught villainy classes. "Unless of course he's got a thing for like mama bear or something…"

Dexter shuttered and shook his head. "It's Raven's grandmother."

Both of Sparrow's eyebrows rose in disbelief to the statement. "What?"

"She's been calling us almost regularly for the past week and a half to have a third party tell her how Raven is doing, apparently there is just something about her that makes Daring just melt at the sight of her."

"Daring is into old ladies?" Sparrow blinked rapidly.

"Actually in witch years Raven's grandmother is still really young." Dexter informed. "She looks exactly the same now as she did back in high school, when a witch reaches a certain point in their life their bodies slow down the aging process to a snails pace, depending on genetics they can live for centuries."

Sparrow pursed his lips and shook his head. "But, um, still… Raven's _grandmother_? I mean she's pretty and everything but… _Raven's_ grandmother…" Sparrow finished lamely.

"Raven's very single grandmother who doesn't go for jailbait." Dexter sighed. "Or at least that's what Raven told me when I told her about Daring's odd fixation on her grandmother. She also said that what happens in her grandmother's private life is her grandmother's business and that Daring was welcome to try… but that he should not get his hopes up too much, because her grandmother does not go for human boys under the age of twenty six and that she prefers men with enough "experience" to keep up with her and make a decent lover."

"Go grandma Queen." Sparrow snorted, trying to hold back laugher. "So how devastated was Daring when he heard about this? Is he going to try anyway?"

"I have not yet told him what Raven told me." Dexter bit his lip guiltily.

Sparrow gave the other a knowing look.

"I know! But what am I supposed to say? I mean how can I possibly bear telling my charming prince _brother_ that there is someone out there who is way out of his league?" Dexter demanded.

"Well I'd leave out the whole virgin thing, incase he decided to gain experience to impress her or something, but the underage boy thing pretty much sums up everything." Sparrow nodded his head. "The earlier that he can head off these growing feelings the less hurt he'll get in the future."

"I know." Dexter sighs looking up. "That's the seventh pass the Grimm brothers have made on that thing, if the Headmaster leans out any farther he'll fall out." The boy observed.

"Why is he going so far? I mean having her called to the office on Monday would be normal procedure, this is way too obsessive for a school official to behave towards a student." Sparrow narrowed his eyes. "It's creepy."

"Raven once said that the Headmaster admitted that he had a thing for her grandmother when they went to school here, she assumes that they either used to date or the Headmaster held a one-sided flame for Elenore Queen." Dexter shrugged. "Maybe that has something to do with this."

"Well unless he turns out to be Raven's long lost grandpops it's still creepy! And I highly doubt that's the case, I mean, look at the guy! There's just no way he'd attract a chick!" Sparrow sniffed. "Best case scenario he's freaking out over the possibility of the Rebel faction gaining more power."

"Could be." Dexter admitted now narrowing his own eyes to regard the Headmaster as the older man scoured the landscape below. Giles idly looked around too but seemed far calmer, one hand gripping the back of his brother's collar in case the older leaned far enough out to fall. "Giles doesn't look too impressed though, so I'm not too worried."

Dexter looked down, fidgeting nervously. "Say… before I lose my nerve… how would you feel about… trying out going on a date sometime after this? If you just want to stay friends it's cool, and I can be fine with that, but… yeah…" The prince coughed awkwardly.

"Sure." Sparrow breathed out a little breathlessly. "I'd… like that."

Dexter looked up in surprise. "Really? Cool! I um…" The boy smiled. "Cool."

"Totally cool." Sparrow smiled back.

XXX

"Let's hope that they won't end up needing my help while they're over there." Darling took a brave breath before putting on the helmet of her white armored suit.

The girl took one last glance around before jumping into the Well of Wonder, seconds before it winked out of sight.

XXX

"Someone's jammed the locking mechanism to this." Raven murmured, examining the book in her arms. "There are also these gaps between some of the pages…"

"If you don't mind me asking, why are you so concerned about the condition of the Book of Legends?" Alistair asked over his shoulder. "Maddie said that you're rebelling against tradition and everything the Book represents."

"Well while I don't have any desire of becoming the Evil Queen, I do respect the fact that the Book of Legends is a powerful ancient artifact with a great deal of power inside it that I do not know the full scope of, finding it in this condition worries me quite a bit because it is unclear to me what has been done to it and for what purpose." Raven trailed her fingers down the Book's spine gently, tendrils of the object's magic curling around her fingers as she did so. "If the Book had fallen into the wrong hands…"

"We'll have to keep a close eye on it as well as you then." Bunny nodded to herself. "It is concerning how it had ended up here in the first place."

"Ouch River up ahead." Alistair warned slowing down.

"Ouch River?" Apple blinked.

"It's a river named for the fact that it has razor thin obsidian bits traveling through it at such high speeds that if you were to try to swim across with out proper protection you'd end up all shredded and cut up." Lizzie explained. "That and jabberwocky have been known to swim upstream to the mountain territories in it since most warriors would rather not bother dealing with a cranky jabberwocky and the treacheries of Ouch River it offers the creatures safe passage through the realms."

"…How has anything managed to survive in this place?" Faybelle asked appalled.

"Easy! Learn to fight as soon as possible, avoid the known dangerous areas, don't question the wonder, and stick close to the tribe!" Maddie hummed, skipping forward towards the shores of a wide river with waters that ran white from the speed it flowed and was streaked with black lines from the rocks traveling through it.

"There's the boat." Bunny pointed to a vessel made up of a giant turtle-like shell for the hull and pink spotted blue-green feathered tanned skins for sails.

"The bik-bik is a creature with one of the hardest shells in Wonderland and the hide and feathers of the feared sky wisps have been used for only the best sailing vessels for going across treacherous waters and sand seas." Kitty explained as she began helping Maddie inside the vessel.

"Wonderland is a lot more dangerous than I had thought it would be." Apple mumbled leaning close to Raven after they were all seated and had set sail. "Alice in Wonderland sounded like such a cheerful story…"

"My ancestor was… special. Her brain worked differently than the brains of most people from your realm, she even eventually learned to hold this… understanding of Wonderland better than some of those who have spent their entire lives here, this place still may have been very confusing for her, but her innocence and her curiosity charmed everyone she came across. She was a Wonderlandian not born from Wonderland I guess you could say, it softened the hearts of many dangers that would have normally gobbled her up, so they just stayed back and watched her adapt." Alistair murmured fondly. "Her persistence, and unwillingness to be deterred to continue exploring a place such as Wonderland was a refreshing change from the usual foreigners behavior here. No offense meant."

"None taken." Mira shook her head from her spot at the back of the boat. "So just out of curiosity, if we just so happen to see something swimming towards us in these waters, do we quietly ignore it or do we need to worry?"

"The agreement is that we do not interfere with the _jabberwocky_ and they do not interfere with us." Lizzie sniffed; saying jabberwocky like it was something vile.

"…What if a little tiny one decides to cling onto the netting on the side of the boat and go for a little joy ride?" The redheaded witch asked distractedly, looking over the side of the boat worriedly.

All the girls on the boat stiffened, knowing something was up immediately.

"It's very rare for a jabberwocky to lose sight of their young so it's nothing to worry about." Alisair assured as he adjusted the sail, clueless to the others now peering over the side of the boat.

"Raven… Apple, get back to the middle of the boat." Faybelle advised quietly, staring at the merrily whistling black and silver-scaled creature clutching onto the side of the boat.

"Ignore it and try not to draw its attention." Lizzie hissed. "Get back to your seats!"

"Something going on?" Alistair turned his confused gaze to the others who were sitting oddly still in their seats according to his opinion.

"Foreigners!" A tiny scaly head popped up over the side of the boat, tumbling over the side, and waddling over on it's nine chubby legs until it plopped itself down squarely in front of Raven. "How novel! There is a foreign witch holding a book of names! And a human, and another witch, and… a pale thing with teeth and wings! How exciting!" The jabberwocky grinned with its two mouths showing off razor sharp teeth.

"Oh butterscotches." Alistair whispered frightfully, all wide eyed.

"Do you know the sound that a raven makes on a book?" The jabberwocky asked its head tilted to the side.

"…W-well I don't know about the feathered bird ravens but this one right here," Apple points to Raven, "Whose name is Raven, tends to mumble strange things in her sleep as she uses her thronework books as a pillow." The princess tries to sound casual and polite, hoping that jabberwocky children were similar to human children in being easily distracted.

"It's crows that you've got to worry about with your books." Mira piped up, Clawstorm discreetly forming a spell in her hands to shield incase the little beast got into a biting mood. "Especially if they've got something shiny on the covers, you'll wake up in the middle of the night to find one trying to pry the shimmery bits off you will."

The jabberwocky giggled.

"How did you know that this was a book of names?" Raven asked tentatively, holding up the Book in her arms.

"'Cause I can feel the words flying around inside, they're special words, powerful words, controlling words, words that can only be names in nature." The creature stretched and extended its neck until it's snout was inches from Raven's arms and the Book. "It's really, really old! It feels like curling into the wing of your eldest and dearest grand-matriarch and… and…"

"Sunshine?" Raven asked.

"Yes! Sunshine!" The jabberwocky nodded happily. "You can feel it too?"

"Y-yes. I always have I think. Since I was a little girl. A small thread of a feeling from deep inside." The witch hummed in thought.

"Its connection to you is one pretty fat thread!" The creature tilted its head from side to side curiously, much like a small bird.

" ** _Indeed_**." A deep distorted voice spoke. " ** _How rare to have Grimm children venture into Wonderland without a proper escort_**."

It was at this time that Raven noticed the way Faybelle and Apple were pressing against her sides and that the attention of the Wonderlandians in front of her had shifted to stare at something off the side of the boat.

Raven inhaled a deep reflexive breath at the sight of a giant eye attached to an even bigger head, so massive that only a fraction of it could be seen from the lip of the side of the boat, the scales more silver than black and the eye itself held a resemblance to some species of cuttlefish that Raven had come across in her home kingdom's aquariums. Though none of the cuttlefish she had seen had eyes that were such a shade of bright blue.

"Merry meet observant stranger." Raven tried to bow politely but only managed a nod of the head since the princess and fairy on either side of her were now gripping onto her so tightly.

"If you don't mind us asking, is this little one yours?" Mira spoke, sounding even less fazed than Raven.

"I'm not that little!" The young jabberwocky sniffed standing regally on its two hind legs and lifting its chin(s) in the air. "I grew two inches in the past year."

"Quite a feat, in no time I am sure that you will reach the size of the one peeking into the boat." Mira smiled indulgently at the small creature.

" ** _I thought I sensed the spark of those of the Queen clan lands_**." The bigger jabberwocky blinked its second eyelids at the witches. " ** _The one who came to us before had said that your realm rested beside the sea, that it was not uncommon to come face to gill with intelligent creatures with massive sizes and many teeth, it certainly explains why you aren't frozen like scared prey, like your little comrades..._** " The Creature turned it's gaze onto the others in the boat who were sitting stock still and watching the two creatures cautiously, preparing themselves for an attack.

 ** _"I_** **_do suppose that the presence of the youngest heir to land and to the Book of fairytale names means that you will be taking down the little joke that your predecessor has played upon the worlds_**?" The larger jabberwocky asked Raven.

"You know that the curse over Wonderland isn't a curse at all?" Raven asked, ignoring the jabberwocky's odd phrasing of words. "And you've met my mother?"

" ** _But of course tiny heir. We had helped your mother put it up there in the first place_**." The large creature seemed to almost coo; pleased at the incredulous reaction it got from the Wonderlandians. " ** _We were oh so pleasantly surprised when she came to ask us for permission to color our skies with her magic, argued her case to protect her family, daughter, and lands at any cost necessary even if it was to make herself out to be a monster to those she loved dearly_**."

Clawstorm ducked her disguised head, a bittersweet look crossing her face.

" ** _We agreed to help her of course_**." The large creature continued. " ** _She needed us to allow her to work without trying to devour her first thing, and for us to stage a "panicked rampage" to keep her majesty's dogs away. It was beneficial to us, not only did we have the benefit of having a short period of years to fly so freely above a section of realm-ruled skies like we once had in the old days but her plea appealed to us in ways that were deeply rooted in our culture. Of course it did help that we could finally settle the debt our people owed to your family_**."

"You owed us a debt?" Raven furrowed her brows.

" ** _Your mother was also surprised to hear about it_**." The creature confirmed. " ** _About four generations back you had an ancestor who had given her life to show a few of the more foolish of us mercy, by ending our misery and our lives_**."

Raven blinked. "That… doesn't really sound like something to be grateful for. No offense meant."

" ** _You mother said the same thing_**." Came the wry reply. " ** _As your companions will tell you,_** **_Jabberwocky never give their individual birth names to those outside the collective_**."

"Because names are words that hold power! And giving people power over you is not good!" The tiny jabberwocky declared as it curled up at Raven's feet.

" ** _But back then a few of us who were young and foolish had, and as a result those few of us became controlled, attacking others in the collective and flying off to do their master's bidding like little more than puppets, it was your ancestor who had figured out that deceitful man's scheme and it was she who had freed our lost kin's souls from their enslaved bodies at the cost of her own life. We owe your family greatly for that_**." The larger creature stared at Raven (and Clawstorm) with half-lidded eyes, seeming… almost fond.

"Strangers are dangerous." The tiny jabberwocky crows proudly.

" ** _Young one, if you truly knew the words you speak you would not have climbed into this boat_**." The elder sighed exasperatedly.

"But it's very strange to feel all of those words and names in one place." The younger seemed to pout (although that was only an educated guess since jabberwocky did not have lips) and jerked its head in Raven's (and Clawstorm's) direction. "Surely a person with those kind of words flowing through them should be more worried about me! And the narrators couldn't stop talking about this boat! I had to see!"

" ** _…I always told your mother that you were a troublemaker. From the moment you pushed your egg out of the nest and rolled it around the floor before you hatched, upside-down no less, I knew that you would be an excessive handful_**." The larger seemed to sigh again. " ** _But while we're here, I might as well fly them close to their destination, the narrators are getting antsy for some reason, they keep trying to be sneaky by whispering, a foolish endeavor to try to hide things from a jabberwocky. Something about an impending showdown between a Queen and some fool named Kline, and not to trust the one named Courtly Jester for she is working for the evil ones, not that there is very many cases of strictly good or evil just a bunch of grey shades_** …"

The occupants of the boat startled when they were suddenly lifted out of the water, the larger creature cradling the vessel in its two clawed front paws.

Breath left Raven's lungs as the larger jabberwocky lowered its arms, Apple squeezed her middle tightly, Faybelle hunched over the witch and princess protectively on reflex as the massive head, neck, and shoulders of the prehistoric creature towered above them. Barely a sound left her lips as they all took to the air; her insides doing a low flop and flip as they were sailed up to the sky.

XXX

"Get back inside, you're starting to draw a crowd down there." Giles tugged his brother back to a proper seating position, waving innocently at the curious on looking students as they passed by them for another turn on the Ferris wheel. "We will go on two more rounds before we should try looking for her on foot again but I get the feeling that wherever she is it's not in the fairgrounds."

"So have you finally managed to find a copy of the list of people who had attended ex-new guy's initiation ceremony?" Milton leaned back, wincing at the twinge of pain in his spine that was a result of half hanging out of his seat for most of their time in the Ferris wheel.

"Whoever had destroyed the original records was incredibly thorough, but I did manage to find a carbon copy folded up in a shoe box where Ms. Trollsworth keeps the old carbon paper just incase she might need it again someday." Giles informed. "You'll never believe who her birth father is."

"I'm sure that whoever he is, his identity is far less shocking than the news that Clawstorm has lead a double life as a revered do-gooder mad scientist from her mirror prison and holds some sort of record on the speed and mass quantity of golem formation, all while she holds a title that she never signed her name for and is the most feared criminal in several worlds." Milton sighed despairingly. "What more is there for her to throw at me?"

"Raven's father is the Good King." Giles announced plainly.

"I'm being serious." Milton rolled his eyes.

"So am I." Giles defended smugly.

Milton's face dropped. "Wha- but _how_?"

"I think that you would know how by now brother." Giles snorted.

"Not what I meant and you know it!" Milton hissed. "What I mean is that how could a crybaby goody two shoes like the Good King ever let Clawstorm near him? She'd eat him for breakfast!"

"Well they never married, that's about as far as I can tell you about the specifics of their relationship." Giles shrugged.

"Miss Queen did say that she had a family member outside of her grandmother and mother who wanted her to take over their position." Milton murmured in a daze.

"Why do you keep calling her that?" Giles asked.

"Calling her what?" Milton blinked in confusion.

"Calling Raven " _Miss Queen_ ", I mean you have no troubles with calling Clawstorm by her given name." Giles pointed out.

"It's still too weird for me." Milton scrunched up his face. "When Clawstorm was her age I couldn't get past the idea of her being Elenore's daughter, but Miss Queen has always been Miss Queen to me from the first day she set foot in this school. I had promised myself not to see her as anything else other than just another student and then the whole Rebel faction started and… she had made the words her own in my mind I suppose, it's stuck like that and I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to think of her name without automatically referring to her as Miss Queen."

"…That makes some strange sense I suppose…" Giles allowed. "Though it is equally weird since you've also started referring to her as your granddaughter."

"Lots of grandparents do that." Milton defended.

"Like our grandfather referred to us as grandson and sprout?" Giles raised a brow.

"You're the one who used to try to make hats out of potted plants when you were a kid, grandfather wasn't too weird for calling you that." Milton snorted. "And besides Miss Queen is my eldest and only granddaughter, it's not strange referring to her as such."

"Is that the speech that you're planning on telling her when we find her?" Giles asked.

"If she'll stick around long enough for me to talk to her properly." Milton looked down at the guardrail glumly. "What if she wants nothing to do with me? I mean after everything I had put her mother and grandmother though…"

"You won't know unless you try." Giles patted his brother on the back. "We'll just have to see what happens when we find her. She's got to be somewhere on campus or in the village after all, where else could she possibly have disappeared to?"

XXX

"Thank you for the ride up here." Clawstorm thanked the Jabberwocky, a respectful smirk on her face.

" ** _The pleasure was all mine. Especially how the young Alice and White Rabbit squealed each other's names at one point. Very humorous_**." The large creature leered down at the occupants of the boat. " ** _Remember that we did give the not-so Evil Queen the honor of being protected by the bones of our fallen collective, should she be in need of them she should not hesitate to use them_**." The creature spoke cryptically before beating its massive wings and taking off.

"Bye, Bye!" The smaller jabberwocky waved three of its spindly hand-like paws at them from the larger creature's shoulder as they took to the sky.

Clawstorm's smirk melted into a soft smile, Mira gently touching the charm bracelet on her left hand, where the tiny summoning scrolls were held securely in their decorative bottles, perfect camouflage for one of her more powerful lines of defense.

"…Apple I can't breathe." Raven squeaked out after a long silence.

"Sorry." The princess apologized relaxing her hold on the witch's waist.

"First two hours in Wonderland and we run into a jabberwocky, second top predator of this place." Faybelle scrubbed her face tiredly with one hand, the other arm still slung protectively around both Raven and Apple's shoulders. "Is it too much to ask for a less eventful remainder of this quest?" She growled.

"Trouble in Wonderland usually comes in threes." Bunny fidgeted wearily.

"Oh it does, does it? Well that's just peachy!" The fairy hissed sarcastically.

"It figures that they would have helped the Evil Queen." Alistair spat. "They've been having a grand ol' time flying in and around the curse cloud and making themselves out to be even more terrifying than they already were."

"Still jabberwockies hate being in debt to people or doing favors to anything outside their own kind. Whatever you ancestor did it must have been very impressive if they owe your family so much." Lizzie mused gingerly standing up to look around.

They were on top of one of a series of steep grass covered rocky hills that resembled the back of a very lumpy animal. Since they were almost directly below it, they could see the "cursed" cloud very clearly, every so often lightning arched within the mass of clouds casting off a feeling of doom that could not be shaken away even with the knowledge that it was all harmless.

"That was scary." Apple whispered with wide eyes, clasping Raven's hand like a security blanket.

"How much farther do we have to go?" Raven asked Alistair.

"We're here actually, the only problem is that we were supposed to meet someone who had the Evil Queen's spellbook, one of the few things that she had dropped and left behind when the Grimm brothers nabbed her, it has the spell to reverse the curse in it… but because the curse can only be broken by a blood relative…" Alistair trailed off.

Raven nodded. "Who was supposed to give us the spellbook? We should try to meet them soon."

"Her name was Courtly Jester…" The boy bit his lip worriedly.

"Oh." Raven said faintly, the jabberwocky's warning ringing in her ears.

"We aren't finished with trouble." Kitty growled lowly looking over the side of a cliff edge.

"It's Courtly Jester, and she's with a strange man." Bunny reported quietly.

The rest of the party peered over the edge. There was a woman dressed in brightly colored jesters clothing leaning flirtatiously close to a young man who was leaning against a grassy boulder.

"No…" Raven whispered in horror as she spotted the distressingly familiar man. "That-… that man… I've seen him before! At the initiation ceremony and-" Faint, blurry images flashed across her mind. " _He tried to_ _kill me_ … I- the memory's faint but I could never forget that face! It's him!"

Clawstorm grit her teeth, just barely managing to suppress the urge to let her magic surge outward in fury.


	31. Chapter 31

"Are you sure it's him?" Maddie whispered.

"Positive." Raven nodded grimly.

"What do we do? That lady has the spellbook! We need that spellbook to get rid of the giant cloud of doom!" Faybelle hissed.

"A human rich boy and a clown versus two witches, one fairy, five Wonderlandians, and Apple. They don't stand a chance." Kitty sneered.

"Uh why did you include me in that?" Apple asked nervously. "I can't fight."

"The hell you can't!" Kitty snickered lowly. "What you lack in experience you make up for in intelligence and having the ability to go completely loco, need I remind you that it took three people to subdue you that one time?"

Apple blushed looking off to the side in embarrassment.

"I was impressed and that's saying something." Faybelle piped up encouragingly to the mortified princess.

"We might have more trouble on our hands than originally predicted." Mira spoke, her body going completely tense. "You see that amulet he's wearing around his neck?" The witch shifted until she was holding up the amulet she wore to suppress the scent of her magic for the others to see. "Looks like we match."

Years ago that had been the one thing that had allowed Kline-bastard to survive Clawstorm's attempt at reducing him to a pile of ash, the surprise that he could wield magic too. The surprise that he was not a human but a powerful warlock, his mother may have been human but her completely human husband was obviously not the idiot's father, who Kline's birth father really was stayed a mystery but by the way the bastard was so loyal to the cause of hunting down his own kind Clawstorm had a strong suspicion of who the man's real father was…

Lizzie squinted down at the man. "How did you spot that from this high up?"

"It looked familiar, kind of hard to mistake something that is so similar to what one wears every single day." Mira shrugged, Clawstorm batting her eyes innocently.

"Well that solves the mystery of how he was able to survive my mother going after him." Raven murmured. "We need to try for something a little bit more sneaky than a simple jump and beating the snot out of these guys. And remember, that woman has my mother's spellbook, not only is it a strong reservoir of magic that even an untrained non-magic-user can use, but it also has some pretty potent spells in those pages. They're both dangerous opponents."

"Didn't the Evil Queen put a protection spell on her spellbook?" Maddie asked.

"It takes a while for those kind of spells to take effect in objects that powerful." Mira grumbled cursing herself for not putting extra precautions to her old book. "For that one we'd have to keep getting her to use the spells until she eventually ends up cursing herself, but that would take too long, we have to take her out quickly."

"We should separate them, divide and conquer, it'll be super duper risky but hopefully our advantage in numbers will take down these traitors." Maddie advised, a maniacal glint in her eye.

"I call helping taking out numb-nuts down there." Mira volunteered. "I know lots of defense magics that will be useful in taking him down, since he would have more experience with using magic than the idiot broad. At the very least I can teleport him a far enough distance away and hold ground until the rest of you arrive… or I get a miracle and someone equally as powerful as he shows up after hearing all the commotion to save me." The witch stated cryptically, mentally planning for a brief return of the Evil Queen if the situation allowed for it.

"Mira-" Raven began in a horrified tone.

"Like I told you before your highness I knew the risks going in and no matter the dangers I _will_ be protecting both you and our lands no matter what." Mira cut off the other witch firmly. "Whatever happens it truly is a honor and my right to protect both you and my home, I will never regret it."

"Gods…" Raven almost sobbed. "Why did it have to come to this?"

"We might need to put more people on him than on Courtly." Lizzie assessed. "Mira, you get this creep over to the abandoned quarry half a mile behind us, you saw it when we landed, Kitty, transport me and Maddie over there first then come back for Alistair and Bunny… Raven, how do you want to play the jester?"

"We should initially go for trying to curse her out by making her use as much magic as possible." The witch took a deep breath. "I'm… I think that together Faybelle and I can be strong enough to shield against any attacks she throws our way, and Apple can be used as our eyes and brain while we fight her off but we also have the Book to worry about protecting as well as getting or hands on that spell-"

"That's it!" Apple whispered. "One of you has to sign the Book! Both the Evil Fairy and Evil Queen pages give a power boost to the signer!"

"That should be more than enough to beat her." Raven breathed out in relief turning to the fairy beside her. "Faybelle, let's get you signed in."

"We've run out of time." Mira hissed suddenly, visibly bristling as the man below looked from side to side before turning his befuddled gaze upwards, directly at the teenagers (and one adult) watching from above. "We've stared too long! The bastard has sensed us!"

Within Raven's arms the Book of Legends glows brighter, wrapping it's magic around the two witches, almost as if it were trying to protect them.

XXX

The Grimm brothers halted in their tracks on one of the dirt paths leading out of the fairgrounds as the familiar feeling of the Book of Legend's magic tripping their bonds to high sensitivity.

"Now I know that we both felt that." Giles murmured to the air in front of them.

"Clawstorm, Miss Queen, they're in danger!" Milton realizes with growing panic. "I can sense them…" He turns from side to side for a moment, getting his bearings. "This way." The man focuses on the area where the feeling is strongest and takes off running towards the forest, Giles right beside him.

XXX

"They're smiling and waving at us…" Maddie observed lightly as she eyed the two adults on the ground.

"They have no idea what's about to hit them." Kitty snorted, arching her back in preparation to jump.

"They don't have the slightest clue." Apple hummed her lips melting into a feral grin as she waved at their unsuspecting prey.

"How did they miss the giant jabberwocky flying in earlier?" Alistair wondered.

"Well if the state of that lady's rumpled clothes I can make an accurate guess as to why…" Faybelle deadpanned. "Honestly talk about no sense of time and place."

"Everybody on my count." Lizzie smirked, discreetly adjusting her gloves (which were lined with a substance that protected her skin, made slicing things with her hands a little bit more easier). "Three… two… _Sick-em' Mira_!"

The witch whisked herself out of sight in a swirl of magic before making a dramatic reappearance by shooting out of a cloud of red and purple light farther down the cliff face, tackling the surprised man around his middle before disappearing them both in yet another swirl of magic.

"Karl no!" Courtly Jester screeched reaching for the spot the man had been mere seconds ago.

XXX

Kline hit the rocky ground with a pained gasp, throwing his arms and magic up to shield against the constant onslaught from the tiny witch above him.

"What the-?" He demanded peeking up at the strange girl's enraged face through the blue glow of his magic and the fiery sparks that exploded when her (surprisingly potent) magic made contact with his.

"You bastard!" Mira growled, Clawstorm baring her teeth. "You just think that you can get away with trying to kill the Queen clan and their lands without somebody saying something about it?" She roared striking down and shattering through the man's shield, Kline ducked, just narrowly missing his head from being bashed in.

"And here father had always warned me that it was only the Queen royal family that I had to watch out for." The young man complained as he rolled out of the way. "At least you don't look like a Queen to me- ack!" He coughed when she managed to strike him in the stomach and send him skidding back several yards.

"Geez you just keep on swinging!" Kline coughed, lighting up his hands. "What's a little thing like you doing out here anyway?"

Clawstorm opened Mira's mouth and roared as she leaped at the man, Kline managing to jump out of the way before the witch's strike attack got him, dust and rock bursting out in all directions as she landed her attack on the empty ground.

"Alright, so you just want to fight and not make small talk I take it?" Kline asked once most of the dust cleared and he was met by the sight of a very ticked off witch glaring at him from a sizable crater in the ground.

XXX

Sounds of faint explosions could be heard coming from the quarry behind the teenagers, bursts of clashing magical lights erupting in the sky.

"Mira's in trouble!" Raven fretted as she stared behind them in worry.

"Karl?" Courtly looked around her as if the man would reappear before her. "What have you brats done to my boyfriend?" The woman demanded heatedly.

"Kitty, now!" Lizzie hissed linking her arm around one of Kitty's while Maddie did the same with the other, the three of them vanishing quietly into thin air.

Faybelle stood up, staring down upon Courtly Jester witch a sneer. "Sorry to burst your bubble miss but that man's name isn't Karl, he's actually a wanted criminal named Kline, and if you know what's good for you you'll hand over that spellbook so that we can get this show on the road." Faybelle called down cheekily.

"You little- no! I will not give up the spellbook like I'm just another obedient pawn in the queen's court! Since when has anybody looked at Courtly Jester as anybody special? Never!" The Woman screeched at them. "Except for Karl, or Kline, or whatever his name is! It doesn't matter because he paid attention to me! He said that I could take over Wonderland if I just helped him out and that's exactly what I'm going to do! I'm going to off the little witch girl and the rest of you brats and then I'll take over Wonderland and me and my darling can rule over this place!"

"But without the spellbook or Raven Queen we can't free Wonderland from the curse!" Bunny exclaimed looking hurt and desperate.

Courtly paused. "Huh. So that's why they wanted me to deliver this to you." The woman looked at the spellbook thoughtfully. "They didn't tell me that, they just said that I should take this book to you by decree of the queen and I'd find out stuff when you showed up. Which I suppose does make more sense of the whole secret mission thing… but that still doesn't excuse leaving me out of the loop! Oh it just figures! I should have used the spells in here to set everyone on fire or something while I had the chance!"

The teenagers exchanged incredulous looks, even by fairytale standards the woman's whole "curse the world for not bowing to me" attitude seemed far too shallow and better fit for a small child than a grown adult.

Apple was completely incredulous, this was… this wasn't just somebody playing the part of a villain; this was an actual villain she was seeing face to face. This was what she had wanted Raven to become? What she just expected Faybelle to be like if Apple decided to go with her destiny anyway? This- this wasn't the stuff of fantasy or romantic in the least, this was crazy! Actual lives were on the line and this woman was overlooking the bigger picture to the point where she was consumed by hatred and revenge for something that so far sounded like practically nothing-

Just like Apple had always been told that Raven had to become jealous of her simply because she was prettier than the witch, that Raven was born to become her villain, to live a life of sorrow if necessary, just as long as everyone played their part, assumed the impossible ideals of lies told over and over again through the centuries.

Why hadn't Apple put more thought into that before now? Willingly throwing oneself into a life of being hated and feared and giving up rights to their birthright for assuming the role of a criminal, all for the sake of somebody else looking better in other people's eyes…

And what of Apple? To be blind-sighted by the realization that it was all a lie, that the whole promise about happily ever after's and perfect fairytales was all just a… a fancy show put on for the sake of… for the sake of what exactly? Tradition? Duty? A title and an unhappy arranged marriage? And just how did they know that Daring was her prince anyway? They didn't! He was just the eldest son of an influential Charming family and that he was the most charming one out of the bunch! He could just as easily be Ashlynn's prince for all they knew, but Apple was a White, and the heir to the throne of the biggest kingdom in Ever After-…

That was what it was, wasn't it? The whole purpose to her fairytale was all for the sake of duty… feed her with promises and lies of happy endings so that she would do what was expected of her, to get married to someone her parents and their court approved of on political grounds, have as many heirs as possible, and to adhere to the ways of the perfect princess so that she would be a good girl and mind! How horrible it would be for them if she dared start to question the role they had already cast for her and forbid the day she actually wanted more out of her life!

It was all a lie, her parents knew it was a lie and yet they still wanted her to be forced into the same unhappy fate as them! Because it was duty, and duty meant more to them than… it was more important than her own happiness!

And here was this Courtly Jester woman; obviously working with Raven's enemy and obviously here to help him get rid of the witch once and for all, ranting on without a care about all the horrible things she was going to attempt to do just because she figured that the lot of them were some kind of group of helpless maidens who couldn't do anything to stop her because they would be too busy waiting for a hero to save them!

It suddenly occurred to Apple how defenseless the woman was making herself, standing so boldly before them and ranting on when they were the ones who had the higher ground…

Quietly Apple snuck away, picking up a sturdy looking tree branch before tiptoeing around the ledge until she stood behind a small boulder, quickly she worked to lever the rock closer and closer to the ledge where Courtly stood far below them.

"Yes… so quit whining about picking a fight with people that have nothing to do with you and give it to us already!" Faybelle ordered, her expression flat and gaze unwavering even as she spied Bunny and Alistair assisting Apple out of the corner of her eye. "Some of use would like to get things over and done with sooner rather than later! Trust me on this, it's your last chance!"

Courtly gave a harsh laugh. "Foolish child! It is I that should be on the throne! I should be the one to rule all of Wonderland! I'll slay the lot of you! And once little Lizzie comes back I'll happily shut her up and present her head to the soon to be former queen! With this book giving me power and the curse preventing anybody from escaping my wrath I will be unstop-."

With a final nudge the boulder was tipped off the edge of the cliff, hurtling down upon the ranting woman below.

Courtly shrieked at the sight of the huge rock heading right for her, jumping out of the way and just barely managing to avoid being crushed by mere inches. The woman sitting positively stunned in the dirt and staring mutely up at an annoyed blonde princess for a few moments, the spellbook laying feet away, where she had dropped it.

"A-Apple?" Raven squeaked, staring at the princess with wide eyes.

"Normally I'd be opposed to using such violent means against another person but it would be equally irresponsible to just sit back and do nothing while you put the people I care about and the lives of the citizens of this world in danger just for the sake of sating this pitiful delusion you have about yourself." Apple spoke coldly as she began swinging her purse in slow circles in the air, her eyes narrowing dangerously to thin slits.

"You- you could have killed me!" Courtly exclaimed. "You're a princess! A damsel! That- that just isn't your destiny!"

"And you were planning to try to kill us after your little speech." Apple deadpanned. "Destiny or no destiny I will not feel sorry about defending myself or my friends by whatever means necessary."

"You went against your story! What kind of _real_ princess goes against their story?" Courtly adopted a sneering tone.

"The kind who doesn't care and is at the end of her rope." Apple growled darkly, refusing to be cowed.

"I'm going to make you pay for this!" Courtney hissed reaching for the spellbook. "Once I get my hands on you…" She swore opening the cover and beginning to flip through pages, searching for an antiquate spell.

"Too slow." Apple rolled her eyes before swinging her purse down, the bejeweled metal object beaning Courtly square in the head, knocking the woman out cold.

Silence descended upon the area, even the flowers were quiet.

XXX

"You kids don't have to get involved you know." Kline assured gently as he dodged another one of Lizzie's attacks. "This whole thing with Raven Queen and her family has nothing to do with you guys."

"Raven is our clan's adopted sister." Maddie hummed, eerily calm as she sent a series of sharp-edged saucers the man's way.

Kline ducked, furrowing his brows. "Really?" He asked confused. "But she's dishonored, her mother's the one who went completely Armageddon on your world, why would you adopt her?"

"The Evil Queen is only the way she is because of you!" Lizzie snarled. "You and your little band of witch hunters are the ones who brought her here, who drove her to this insanity! Do you honestly believe that she just picked Wonderland at random to poison?"

Kline spun on his heel and made a wide sweep with his hand, sending blue magic out like a wave and forcing everyone but Mira to take several leaps back to get out of the way.

"Alright I'll admit that it's kind of obvious that it was her plan to trap us here, and that we did lead her here, but she is the one who took things this far and went completely postal, totally not my fault!" Kline shrugged.

"You tried to kill her daughter with a whip, you're group is trying to start a war with the Queen lands, and you resurrected an extinct society of witch hunters to hunt your own species!" Kitty pointed out incredulously. "How is that not your fault?"

"It was all necessary." Kline assured as calmly as he could while shielding himself as Mira pelted him with the rocks she was levitating from all sides. "You people know better than anybody that the best way to defeat the opposition is to have others stir up trouble and fear for you, the Queen lands don't really fit in if you think about it, I mean a witch state nestled on all sides by human kingdoms? A war is bound to break out, it's just a matter when, and who will gain the most profit when all hell breaks loose. Seriously you guys should be helping me rather than fighting me, you could profit from all this as well!"

"…Or… not…" The man coughed when the four females seemed to vibrate with rage and as one leaped at him.

Kline transported himself out of the way before their combined attack landed.

"You ladies are really invested in taking me out." Kline observed from behind them.

"What did the Queen family ever do to you?" Mira demanded her voice raw with emotion. "What did a little girl ever do to deserve you trying to beat her to death?"

"Nothing personally." Kline put both hands up as if he were trying to calm the girls (and disguised woman) down. "But it's not like I'm a total monster and wanted to watch her suffer or anything, you see if it were up to me personally I would have either killed her quickly and as painlessly as possible or I would have simply sent her far away where she could never hope to come back and cause me any trouble, she was just a little witchling at the time after all. But she had formed a bond with something that I needed to get my hands on eventually and I needed to at least try to sever it so that it could bond with me and the ritual called for a large amount of blood to be spilled by a ritualized beating."

"A bond?" Lizzie asked signaling Mira to stand back for a moment until they got all the information that they needed from the man.

Kline rolled his eyes, misinterpreting Lizzie's gesture as a sign that the girl was starting to become interested in his reasoning, greed always won out in his opinion.

"Well now that I finally have your attention to talk reasonably, for your information Headmaster Milton Grimm picked me to surpass himself and his brother as the future Headmaster of that school and the future servant to the Book of Legends, but unfortunately for little Raven Queen she had been present, for some reason, at my initiation ceremony and the Book had formed a bond with her and not with me. But I was very kind to her years back, I had drugged her so that she would feel no pain or fear during her ritualized sacrifice, I even pre-prepared all of her funeral rites so that her spirit could rest easily when she passed." Kline assured once again.

"Bastard." Mira hissed under her breath. She itched to do more to the man but if she ramped up her powers then her glamour would melt away and she still needed people to assume that she was Mira Shards, she needed to come up with a plan.

"But I thought that only descendants of the Grimm family line could form bonds with the Book." Kitty piped up, looking around for ways to use the landscape to gain a tactical advantage on the man.

"Hey I was surprised too when I found out that kid was Headmaster Grimm's granddaughter, but since he had taken great pains to not claim his daughter or granddaughter as his heirs I hardly doubted that he would care much if they were to all disappear." Kline shrugged.

Clawstorm narrowed her eyes, memories of her last conversation with her father swimming up to the front of her mind. "That doesn't sound like the Headmaster we know you moron so nice try with trying to make him out to be that kind of bad guy, even if he wanted nothing to do with his child he would never condone to knowingly helping you with this insane scheme of yours. He may be a lot of things but he does care about the welfare of his students, Raven Queen included."

"Ah, well you got me there I suppose, that was the most annoying thing about the guy." Kline sighed. "Both Grimm brothers at the time I briefly got to meet them were so stuck on all that tradition stuff and kept emphasizing the importance of neutrality. I told the boss that it was bad business trying to sneak under their noses but they are old humans and they'll die off before everything settles into place."

"This plan you're talking about, it sounds like something that will take a great deal longer than normal profiting from war materials." Lizzie realized, her eyes narrowing.

"Yeah well that's the surprise part." Kline smiled. "But for right now I can help you if you just stop attacking me and do a little something for me."

"Let me guess, you're going to offer to free Wonderland and kill the Evil Queen if we help you kill Raven and the rest of the Queen clan." Mira deadpanned.

Kline blinked in surprise. "Well Raven Queen is a little bit more doable but if you think that you can-"

"You have no idea why Raven is in Wonderland, do you?" Kitty rolled her eyes, this man sounded like a bad acting salesman.

"No, I'll admit that does have me a bit confused." Kline admitted.

"Our answer is no by the way." Maddie sighed, getting ready to start fighting again.

Kline actually looked disappointed. "Well have it your way I guess though I'm afraid that I can't go easy on you forever." The man lit up his hands.

"And neither can I!" Mira sprinted forward, throwing her full body and magic into the man, sending them both hurtling down a slope and into a rock wall.

XXX

"Do all bad guys have to go through the whole "I am evil" speech or just the stupid ones?" Apple griped. "And here I was actually worried that she might pose some sort of danger. Honestly why was she more concerned with talking rather than doing something if she was so worked up about things?"

"Well to be fair she obviously assumed that she was dealing with a textbook fairytale bunch and long-winded evil speeches are kind of the prerequisite to most evil deeds. You know to strike fear into the hearts of heroes and make innocent little maidens cry and such." Faybelle coughed awkwardly.

"Well I already know that." Apple sighed. "But this isn't a fairytale, and furthermore… that tradition is stupid. And insulting, I mean… sure lots of princesses in the edited fairytale stories were kind of… portrayed as gullible, and tended to fall into traps easily, but those were all lies! A-and that whole stereotype of princesses being airheads is completely false! It's practically nothing to strike at the bad guys while they're busy preaching about how evil they are!"

"…You doing all right Apple?" Faybelle squinted her eyes, actually feeling… slightly concerned, she knew that the princess was questioning her destiny and all but to easily come out and say that the status quo in regards to a fairytale tradition of evil ranting was stupid? It was very unusual indeed.

"No." The princess glared at the ground. "But I've just realized that I'm far better off than I was before and… maybe- no… I _will_ be even more better off the more I distance myself from being confined into somebody else's life and somebody else's expectations."

Faybelle raised her brows and exchanged surprised looks with Raven.

Apple flinched as the sounds of battle intensified from the quarry behind them. "Faybelle, if you could please help fly me and one of those two down there, you can retrieve the spellbook for Raven while we tie that lady up and move her out of the way. From the sound of things behind us, and the fact that Kitty hasn't returned yet, you should sign the Book and magic yourself and the others over to help while Raven and I stay behind to reverse this curse and open Wonderland up to the rest of the worlds once again." The princess spoke calmly and levelly despite the fact that she was shaking like a leaf. "Be safe out there okay? And see if you can bring everyone back safe-… well see if you can do what you can." The princess coughed wincing again when the sound of a particularly large explosion reached their ears.

"Alistair, could you call the queen or somebody to send us help. Update them on what is going on." Raven requested quietly as Faybelle and Bunny made their way to Apple.

XXX

"Mira!" Lizzie cried out when Kline expelled a burst of magic that sent the girl flying into the stone wall opposite them, the girl of hearts starting to jog towards her fallen comrade.

In a cloud of black smoke Mira's fallen form vanished, Lizzie too far away to see the smirk that the witch had worn before her form dissolved out of sight.

"What was that?" Kitty demanded because the inky cloud certainly didn't look like the witch's magic. "Where did it take Mira?"

"Somewhere safe to heal." A voice hissed from a previously unnoticed inky black cloud of smoke vapor hovering above them, gasps drew from the girl's mouths as Clawstorm, in her true form, delicately stepped out of the cloud and onto a rocky ledge several dozen feet up from them (she had conjured up a suitable long-sleeved white button up shirt and some freaking jeans, to at least be a little bit more comfortable while fighting).

"Dreadfully sorry about the inconvenience that my spell has put your lands in but I had not meant it to be held up this long, let's just say I miscalculated the true extent of the patience and the sheer vileness of my enemies. But I assure you that I have no intention interfering with your little plan, I would just like a chance to reduce dunderhead over here into a tiny pile of bloody tissue and boney bits."

Clawstorm put her hands to her hips. "Hello once again _Kline-bastard_."


	32. Chapter 32

"Well I'll be, you're a lot more polite than I imagined." Maddie giggled at the absurdity of the concept of the Evil Queen being polite.

"Why thank you, I've been working on that, I'm under the understanding that politeness tends to confuse the hell out of one's rude enemies." Clawstorm did a little bow.

"Never imagined that you'd wear white." Kitty hummed tilting her head to the side. "Considering what you are and all."

"I try to conjure up more colorful clothes from time to time." Clawstorm confessed. "When I was younger people used to throw dreadful fits if I didn't constantly look the part you see so now that the tale is done I enjoy indulging in a little more color and a lot more white."

"I can imagine that the same color and design scheme day in and day out would get rather tiresome." Lizzie nodded in understanding.

Kline looked between the teenagers and the woman in befuddlement. "Pardon the interruption but would someone kindly explain to me why you all are being so calm and polite to each other? You're enemies!"

"I hold no personal ill will towards the people of Wonderland, my hatred and the focus of my insanity rests solely with you, Kline-bastard, and your little group of traitors." Clawstorm sniffed.

"And as we said before; you were the one who brought her here, you are the one who put us in the middle of your foreign conflict." Lizzie hissed coldly at the man. "By our laws you are the worse offender between the two of you and therefore you will get an even worse punishment!"

"But she's _evil_! She's the Evil Queen!" Kline tried to emphasize by gesturing wildly to Clawstorm.

Lizzie furrowed her brows. "So?" She said. "What does her title have anything to do with her punishment?"

"Well don't you people think that _evil_ people would be worse than a simple businessman?" Kline asked exasperated.

"Just because she was born a fairytale villain doesn't have to do with anything." Kitty rolled her eyes. "Gods of ears, eyes, and mouth you're starting to sound like one of those Ever After humans and their simple-minded views." She complained.

"But by your laws her offences have her at a public beheading! How would I get something worse than that?" Kline couldn't help but ask.

"Actually she will just be sentenced to ten years in the coliseum as a professional gladiator." Maddie stated matter-of-factly. "You are the one who will be on the chopping block."

"You see while what she did was very wrong, she also did it to prevent war and to protect her family, added onto that no one had been killed when she cursed us and most of Wonderland preferred being inaccessible to outsiders anyway." Kitty explained. "And since like we said before; you were the one to bring us in the middle of this and since Raven is our clan sister that makes her a Wonderlandian citizen too, so all of your crimes against her and her family are considered crimes against a child of Wonderland."

"But she cursed your world!" Kline exclaimed finally loosing some of his cool. "It doesn't make sense that what she did for the sake of her family would factor into a reduced punishment! I've seen her conjure up giant golems in minutes! She'd thrive in one of your coliseums don't you see?"

"Honestly, for a guy who spent the last few years in Wonderland one would think that you would understand the laws and the importance of family bonds here a lot better." Clawstorm squatted down, resting her forearms on her knees as she observed the man, much like a vulture would observe a carcass.

"I'd like to see you try to understand the impossibilities of the riddlish language!" Kline sneered. "It's not even an exact language!"

"Hiddle dee hiddle dum of faith and loss and girls with talented secrets." Clawstorm deadpanned. "Riddlish is one of the six living languages that I speak."

"With such qualifications she'd bring us great entertainment as a gladiator on the weekends." Lizzie concluded before turning to the others. "Don't you think?"

Kline's eye twitched. "Why aren't you people cowering in fear or attacking her if she's a criminal according to you?" He demanded.

"Because we have the same goal." Maddie giggled drawing a serrated throwing blade out of her hat. "We both want you dead~."

Kline opened his mouth to speak (or to scream, really nobody, not even Kline could be sure since someone giggling merrily to themselves with a blade in their hands was a whole new level of creepy) when the sky suddenly got substantially brighter and the occasional sounds of lighting clashing within the curse cloud ceased.

"What?" Kline looked up. "It's gone?"

"You really don't know why my little black bird was brought here do you?" Clawstorm sighed; sounding almost disappointed that the man's intelligence appeared to be somewhat selective in what was important. "Any minute now she should be lowering the quarantine and opening up all the old portals."

As the woman spoke a burst of light shot up into the sky, separating out into smaller offshoots that disappeared into all directions.

"Now Kline-bastard let's finish the dance we started all those years ago shall we?" Clawstorm dared confidently as she stood up, her fists ablaze with her magic.

XXX

"So." Ramona Badwolf deadpanned. "You're telling me that you and your girlfriend had the Book all along?"

Cerise shifted awkwardly under her sister's intense gaze. "Pretty much. But we don't have it now, we accidentally dropped it in the last portal to Wonderland."

"And that she knows about us being family? About how we both have conflicting destinies?" Ramona kept focus on the issue regarding that an outsider now knew that herself and her sister were both listed as both Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf characters due to their mixed heritage.

Cerise flinched.

"I'll never tell." Briar swore passionately. "I'd never do that to Cerise or her family and it simply doesn't matter to me because what her ancestry is doesn't matter and I don't want my fairytale either! I won't let them make me sleep for a hundred years I just won't!"

Ramona paused, regarding the princess closely. "You've turned Rebel?"

"Completely." Briar assured dead serious. "My fairytale is a lie, I won't disappear if I don't follow it and since I don't have to follow it I won't. I don't want to be put to sleep for a hundred years and lose all of my human friends… to lose Cerise and be forced to be at the mercy of a complete male stranger and have to marry him. I'll fight with everything I have, I'll even run away and forsake my own family if it comes down to it."

"And my sister?" Ramona asks with an arched brow.

"I'd never hurt her by blabbing her- your family's secrets. I have no right to do that, what is your business is personal and… I really do care for her, like a lot, I-I want to have a future with her… if thing work out, I'd really quite like that a whole lot." Briar confessed, shyly looking over at Cerise.

"And I want a future with her too." Cerise told her sister defiantly, grasping Briar's hand.

Ramona looked between the two of them and heaved a long-suffering sigh.

"Fine." The girl said indicating that she'd let the matter drop. "So why are you telling me about this thing with the Book? It's gone now isn't it? What can I possibly do help you sniff it out? Wonderland is _quarantined_."

"Well first we figured that we probably needed a fresh mind to help us with our dilemma…" Briar began.

"And as for Wonderland…" Cerise coughed. "Let's just say that we have it on good authority that it'll be un-quarantined pretty soon."

Ramona scrunched her face in befuddled disbelief.

"What?" The girl almost laughed at the absurdity, Ramona shook her head not comprehending.

Almost as soon as she spoke there was this melodic ting that filled the forest around them and there was a brief flash that could be seen from over the treetops.

"I don't like the looks of this." Giles voice drifted to the three from somewhere in the forest, the sounds of rapid footfalls sounding close by.

"The quarantine's down!" The Headmaster's voice sounded winded and completely panicked. "Up ahead quickly!"

"Well that doesn't sound good." Cerise whispered lowly.

XXX

"How could you not possibly be tempted by this?" Faybelle asked the magical quill vanished from her fingers and she gave Raven back the Book of Legends, experimentally her newly amped up magic flared in tall blue flames and cackling electricity from her hands. "This boost in power… it's phenomenal!"

"That's why." Raven pointed up at the sky as twinkling lights of magical confetti began drifting to the ground like flakes of snow. "My mother made a simple spell used mostly for tiny children's parties and vamped it up to the point where it was mistaken for a curse of genocide proportions. It could take weeks for this stuff to stop falling from the sky! It makes me a bit nervous is all, that one individual can have all that power."

"I don't think that many Wonderlandians will mind it as much." Alistair hummed at the sky. "Kind of pretty really."

"I'm not too sure the other worlds we just freed will see it like that..." Raven chuckled nervously.

"It's amazing that it only took you to recite two little spells to both get rid of those giant swirling clouds in all of the cursed worlds and to take down the quarantine protocols. If it was that easy why didn't somebody try to smuggle you here sooner?" Apple wondered as she gazed at the sky.

"We were afraid that the Evil Queen might retaliate, but since she's as you say… not that evil, we felt that it was safe to give it a try." Bunny spoke softly as she smiled shyly at the three other girls. "We are very grateful that you were so willing to help us."

Raven shook her head. "I'm the one who should be grateful." She insisted a blush staining her face. "Growing up… the fact that these curses had been conjured up by my mother… I-I…"

"Hey, we get it." Alistair chuckled. "Honor is a big thing here too, a little bit different, but the concept's the same."

"Alright let's go and kick some ass!" Faybelle cheered cracking her knuckles.

"Just as soon as backup comes to take Raven and Apple away to safety." Apple added.

"Right, just as soon as that happens." The fairy amended uncharacteristically without complaint.

"But Mira and the others are-" Raven tried to protest.

"Trying to make sure that the guy sent here to kill you doesn't get anywhere near you." Apple finished seriously. "The fact that Kitty isn't here yet means that this Kline guy is far more difficult to subdue than we originally planned, and that in turn makes him more dangerous to your future existence in this life."

Raven still wasn't convinced. "But what if-"

A particularly loud boom interrupted her, soon followed by the echoing of rocks grinding against one another and the sounds of golems, _large_ ones, roaring to life in the distance.

"Get down!" Apple shrieked and manhandled Raven to the ground when a stray bolt of grey-blue magic raced right for them.

The Book in Raven's arms seemed to glow bright in response to the danger, the glow spreading out until half the connected series of jagged hills were covered in a sphere of bright candlelight yellow magic, the blue-gray ball of enemy magic harmlessly dissipating on contact with the shield.

"What was _that_?" Faybelle demanded from her position crouched over both Raven and Apple.

"The Book…" Raven breathed as she blinked, stunned, at the artifact, the yellow hue around them fading away just as quickly as it came.

"Why-?" Apple began to say but she was interrupted by a familiar voice.

"Hey Guys!" Kitty greeted when she and her two countrymen reappeared, all looking a little beat up and rather worse for wear. "Long story short; Kline is a lot stronger than we originally thought but that's okay because your mom showed up and she's on our side, but things are starting to get too violent so we're going to have to get you far away from here fast."

"What- my mother-? Where is Mira?" Raven demanded once her mind registered that there were only three where there should be four.

"Mira was badly injured but your mother magicked her away to somewhere where she can hide from the battle safely. We are trusting your mother's claim under the assumption that she really isn't all that evil and that her pride was genuine when you took out her curse and opened up Wonderland." Lizzie panted as she gingerly felt out a bruised cut on her side.

"How did she get out of whatever prison that she was in?" Faybelle furrowed her brows, wincing when another explosion landed in an area a little bit closer to them, just outside the rock quarry.

"They are getting closer!" Apple yelped latching onto Raven protectively.

"Can we outrun that on our own?" Alistair asked. "Backup is still a ways off!"

"We can't hide out in Ever After." Faybelle murmured in concern.

"We'd put the students and innocent people in danger if the fight followed us there." Apple agreed.

"I might be able to help you guys out." Darling's voice caused the other teens to startle and turn as one to see the girl's face peeking out of the visor of a white knight armored suit.

"Darling?" Apple questioned weakly.

"I'll explain later." Darling said as she hastily pulled out several rolls of carpets from the satchel she had slung around her suit. "I found a horse chess piece for me to ride on and I figured that you guys might need to get away quickly so I packed some flying carpets for you to use if needed. Where's Mira?"

"Safe." Raven assured, her mother for all of her faults and confusing misdirection did care for the people from her kingdom and if the woman knew that they were in Wonderland then she would have known that Mira was one of their home kingdom's people.

"We have one prisoner, Courtly Jester, a Wonderlandian who had double crossed her highness and who had been intending to kill us all." Bunny warned. "We tied her up in a way that will allow for easy transport to her highness's prisons."

"I'll ride with her." Lizzie volunteered as she took an offered carpet. "I still have some fight left in me and my mother will appreciate a swift explanation when we arrive at the castle. Alistair, Bunny, please lead the way."

"Careful when hopping on princess." Faybelle ordered Apple gently as she helped Raven and the princess onto their assigned carpet which was hovering a foot off the ground. "The two of you keep your heads down yes? Let me worry about steering, I know that the view is interesting but now is not the time to sightsee." The fairy continued on as she got behind the two other girls and crouched protectively over their bent heads.

It only took a few moments for the group to be airborne (with Darling following on the ground on the back of her borrowed steed) speeding away from the advancing battlefield.

XXX

"Oh great, just great, you have a bond with the Book too?" Kline complained as he staggered to his feet.

"Indeed." Clawstorm barely repressed an a depressed huff as she stared at the little tiny yellow glowing wisps flying in and out of her skin. She had never heard of a servant of the Book having to deal with such public displays of magic seeping out of the bone and skin but then again she had never heard about a servant being a witch and the Grimm line tended to hide behind giant oak desks instead of physically fighting their own battles.

For a brief moment the woman wondered at how despite the dampening effects of the rings, bracelets, and the necklace she wore to mask her magical signature, the scent of the Book's magic was almost palpable in the air around her person. She had to end this little fight quickly before something curious and most likely dangerous came sniffing around for a taste (the native fauna of Wonderland having long ago adapted quite terrifyingly spectacularly to the constant wars that used to be fought on their land, most of the time warring parties were forced to create quick temporary truces just so that they could ban together and fight off beasts who lumbered in to snack on the dead, dying, and injured. Such occurrences were so common that Wonderland had formed their own, _very_ special rules of how to conduct a battle, something the invaders from Ever After should have paid closer attention to while they had the chance).

Though Clawstorm had to (grudgingly) admit that having that damnable bond with the thrice-cursed Book did have it's advantages.

For one her senses seemed to sharpen considerably (which was a feat since witch's senses were already one of the most sensitive of any species found in nature), this was a good thing in her opinion because it allowed her to taste the teeny tiny little fragments of her own magic within the vicinity of Kline's breast pocket, such small amounts that even a blood-affinity fairy couldn't detect it unless they had a mouth full of the stuff. There could only be one explanation as to why the made had such tiny traces of her magic on his person and she planned to take full advantage of its presence.

Now it was just a matter of time before he would try to use her own weapon against her, however if she played her cards just right…

There was a horrified shout from above (probably some local who had decided to try to brave coming close enough to get an eyeful) as he lunged at her, gathering up all of his magic to push against hers intending to throw her into the rocky corner that she had inadvertently managed to get herself into with enough force to either knock her out (if he was stupidly lucky) or to stick her with her own invention.

She let him get just near enough to call her own creation back to her (since she had left a good portion of herself in that last batch of micro-talismans she had ever made in person she could easily transport it back to her possession, a three-harvest-old witchling could preform such a simple spell) and the second she felt the syringe touch her palm she simply flew straight up and out of the way.

While the man took a precious moment to gawk at her (the ability to fly without a broom or some other medium was a rare skill for witches) she called upon one of the rock golems she had created earlier and had the seven foot creature seize the startled man before throwing Kline up into the air like he was a very poorly made Frisbee. Breaking the glass housing one of the summoning scrolls both Clawstorm, and the bones of a creature, emerged from a cloud of white magical mist as they flew up to meet the flailing man who was now making the decent back down towards the ground.

Clawstorm met the falling body first; Kline landing on two medium sized spheres of her magic right where his kidneys were located, her palm hit the center of his back, an electric current pushing into his body and spirit (which would not kill someone of Kline's magical caliber but it sure as hell would sting profusely for days afterwards), while the man was thoroughly distracted and screaming to the heavens Clawstorm took the cap off of the appropriated syringe, full of her personally made talismans, with her teeth and plunged the needle into his shoulder, making fast work of injecting the contents into his bloodstream.

And then she let him fall right into the awaiting arms of the golem she had carefully constructed out of the bones of a small pre-adolescent jabberwocky.

"You cheated!" Kline hissed out after he gained back his bearings, he struggled against the boney arms holding his arms, torso, and feet in place and it was obvious that it was extremely painful to do so.

"That's rich coming from you _Mr. traitor to his own race_." Clawstorm snorted as she hovered off to the side of the man, discreetly applying a bit of magic to melt the metal needle off of the syringe before dropping the thing (a little surprise for Kline for later, he'll be sick as a dog being stuck in his own, witch-murdering, presence).

CLawstorm took a moment to breathe, she was tired, sore, and if the blood that kept trying to drip into her eyes was anything to go by, she knew that she was bleeding pretty badly from a gash on the side of her head.

"C'mon you moron, let's fly you over to the Queen of Heart's dungeons. I personally would like to take a nap." Clawstorm announced, gently patting the skull of the jabberwocky golem, every time she saw the things she couldn't help but feel sorry for the fate of the beings whose spirits used to inhabit the living bone and tissues of the now empty shells.

"What?" Kline's shrill voice sounded panicked.

"According to most people I'm the Evil Queen." Clawstorm reminded with a roll of her eyes. "Not only do I know for a fact that you will rue the day you were born if her highness gets ahold of you but I also know that she will make _damn_ _certain_ that you won't slither your way out of her clutches until your head has departed from your body and the citizens of Wonderland have had their fun with your corpse. Since I am so evil and vengeful this thought agrees with me greatly."

For the first time actual, blind, cold, panic fills Kline's features.

"What were you hoping for Kline-bastard?" Clawstorm sneered. "That I'll be overcome by rage and simply kill you where you stand? So that when the news reached your little horde of witch hunters they'll somehow be inspired enough by the passing of their loving leader to rejuvenate their efforts to try to kill off my family and my people? That they will never find out that you are a warlock and not a human? Did you honestly think that I trapped you and your men here so that I could simply hunt you down and kill you? I wanted you _alive_ Kline-bastard, because even if you follow all the safety advice from the pamphlets a witch hiding out from the law in Wonderland will have no choice but to use their magic to survive the dangers here, and _all_ witches need to use their magic otherwise they will get sick!"

Clawstorm crossed her arms. "Tell me this you traitorous numb-skull; how many of your men accidentally found out about your little secret, hmm? How many did you have to kill or have framed for a crime so that they would not try to find a way to alert your little witch hunting headquarters that they were not being lead by Kline the racist radical human leader, they were being controlled like marionettes by Kline the Warlock who had taken up the torch for his father, Tomak of the High Council?"

Kline flinched back visibly, his eyes wild. "How did you-?"

"You left a lot of DNA from the blood you spilled on me during our last battle, I had my contacts who work at the new council building sneak out a copy of your father's DNA profile that they keep in their records incase of a kidnapping or if a body has to be identified. You are his bastard son Kline, and your human mother was the wife of one of the human lords who had originally helped reanimate the dead secret society of witch hunters. It's so much like a damn Penny Dreadful novel that I could almost laugh at how pathetic it all is." Clawstorm curled her lip in disgust.

"It's all completely obvious really; how old was your mother when she had been married off by her family to some pretentious old guy? If I remember correctly she had been about sixteen and he was like seventy or something, how easy it must have been for dear old Tomak who was still handsome and youthful in comparison to her prune of a human husband. The two of them probably met while Tomak had been masquerading as a human and selling the old goat a grand scheme of how they could use these little tiny kingdoms to start a bunch of wars in Ever After and then profit from the weapons that they would sell to everybody, and then soon after you were born. What did the old lord decide to cement the deal by offering up his wife and your mother to your father like she was some sort of-"

" _Shut up_!" Kline barked, rage filling his eyes.

Clawstorm regarded him for a moment. "Well that certainly explains why you're so willing to die for your father's war instead of trying to survive and share the glory with him, this has nothing to do with business or money at all, it's just all about family honor!"

"You know nothing!" The man snapped. "He cares greatly for my mother!"

"I should think so since he did assassinate the lord for her." Clawstorm snorted. "Old gnarled thing like that lord with his love of drink probably couldn't manage to stay awake very many nights with your mother to even have a prayer of conceiving a child. It was the honorable thing to do, to protect your mother from being beaten to death or forcefully subjected to an abortion for wanting to keep you."

"You…" Kline bared his teeth. "You've been doing your research haven't you?"

"Of course I have!" Clawstorm exclaimed. "You people killed my grandparents! Killed many of my people, innocent people! Neglected the lives of hundreds living in the filthy excuse of kingdoms that you rule over! And worse of all you tried to kill my mother and daughter! For the past seven years you have been nothing but my greatest obsession! It's hardly surprising!"

"I will commend you on being thorough…" Kline allowed begrudgingly.

"Oh I haven't even begun." Clawstorm assured shoving one manicured clawed finger at his chest. "You see your little stunt for an honorable death doesn't make sense since your father has put you in such an important roll and he's taken such good care of your mother all on his own so it's obvious that he is at least the type of guy who takes care of his children and the mother of his…"

Clawstorm's eyes widened. " _Children_ plural… you have a little sister…"

"Shut your mouth." Kline breathed looking around him wildly, searching for an escape.

"You lost any semblance of rights to demand that I butt out of your family when you dared touch mine!" Clawstorm growled moving back to stare down at the man. "You level of loyalty and sacrifice goes far beyond that of a son fulfilling his father's wishes. Maternal bloodlines mean _everything_ in witch cultures, especially royal ones. This is more than just a con to profit hugely from selling weapons for wars isn't it?" The woman accused.

"You forgot to mention what we did to your father." Kline gritted out.

Clawstorm gave the man an unimpressed look. "The old coot is still drawing breath you ninny, and as annoying as his traditional opinions can get he'd never knowingly put himself or his brother anywhere near your schemes. Hell I wouldn't be surprised if he's got some nasty little tricks up his sleeve to keep your insane plan out of fairytale affairs now that he knows about you."

"Oh I assure you that we hurt both him and your mother long before you were even a possibility." Kline hissed. "I'd tell you to ask him but he might not be around long enough to tell you." The man warned his hand and arm coming alight with grey-blue magic and looking pointedly down.

Clawstorm turned her head to the direction the man was looking, her breath inhaling sharply as her grey eyes met the grey eyes of her father who was standing on a hill and near a ninety-degree drop with Giles right beside him. Both men were close to the boat that the jabberwocky had flown to the connected series of hills earlier that hour. He was looking at her with wide, panicked eyes and the way he and her uncle were slowly starting to back away she guessed that they had heard everything.

"Don't move." Kline warned her lowly. "And the same goes for you two." He shouted down to the humans below. "One blast at that rock and the whole ledge will fall, now I know that your precious little girl will have the time to save you both but not even the feared and all powerful Evil Queen can both save you and keep me from escaping! That is if she even has enough energy left to keep this golem at full strength to keep holding me like this!"

"I'd still have time to cripple you." Clawstorm hissed heatedly, worry rising up her throat despite herself. "If you so much as dare twitch a finger I'll crush your limbs and mess up your ribcage so bad breathing will be nothing but a chore for a really, really long time. You've already pushed my wrath far past their safety mechanisms and you have seen how far I was willing to go! _Do not_ try your luck with pushing me even further."

Kline chuckled lowly. "You're forgetting that I'm a warlock my dear, and as you know all too well, witches are a extremely difficult to kill. Did you really think that I've come this far with the intentions of abandoning my honor just because the most feared woman of several worlds said so?" He asked before releasing the bolt of magic in his hand.

"Damnit!" Clawstorm cried, her voice echoing for miles, quickly twisting her wrist as a command to the jabberwocky bone golem to squeeze its claws and arms together with as much force possible, causing Kline to cry out in pain, before she transported herself behind the two old men and grabbed the back of their collars and then transporting a second time moments before the incoming attack landed.

It had been the second transportation that had done it; she had felt her control slip for just enough time for the golem's claws to slacken and for Kline to drop towards the ground, Clawstorm growled from her spot over a hundred yards away as a bright green light enveloped Kline's falling figure before he vanished from sight.

"Leaper stick." Clawstorm spat out the name of the device used to transport far distances using a large implosion of concentrated magic as she released the two stunned men and flew up towards the sky.

"Clawstorm!" Milton tried to call out to his daughter once he had the presence of mind to find his voice, but by then the witch was already out of reach, both her and the bone jabberwocky golem disappearing into a fine white magical mist.

"I am _so_ contacting Elenore, the second we get Raven squared away back at school." Giles swore fervently leaving no room for argument.

"First she gets engaged to be married, then she smuggles herself to Wonderland, and now this?" Milton asks the sky faintly. "No more surprises for today, when we get Raven Queen back to the school I am locking her up in a tower… I'm calling for emergency action, It's for her own safety that she be hidden away!"

From behind them, hidden behind the boat four sets of wide eyes give each other panicked looks.

Giles snorted. "Yeah, good luck keeping her there. Let me know how that turns out because I will not be apart of _that_ madness. I will however watch from the sidelines and laugh as your plan falls apart spectacularly."


	33. Chapter 33

Clawstorm emerged behind the bik-bik boat from a cloud of inky smoke in the form of Mira Shards, the disguised woman making a soft noise of surprise when she saw four of her classmates covertly spying on the Grimm brothers from behind the bik-bik boat.

"Chief?" Mira whispered softly to Blondie as she limped over to the reporter.

"Mira!" The blonde girl nearly shrieked when she turned and spotted the injured witch. "What happened? You're bleeding!" Blondie exclaimed as she raced over to Mira's side.

"Whose there?" The Headmaster's stern voice demanded as he and Giles rounded over from the front of the boat. "Dear gods what in heaven's name happened to you Miss…"

"It's Shards sir, Mira Shards." Mira spoke clearly yet tiredly, resigning herself to the fact that she had better start talking about what had happened (not everything but enough). "I'm a citizen from Honored Lady Raven Queen's kingdom, one of the retired magic mirrors adopted me. We had thought that we were safe sir, we could not foresee whatshisname seducing one of our escorts and convincing her to try to help him kill us sirs."

"Could you please start at the beginning Miss Shards?" Giles asked gently though he looked alarmed.

"Wonderland figured out that Lady Raven was the key to free them from the curse, she agreed to help them." Mira pointed her chin to the sparkles falling from the sky. "It had all been going along just fine until we arrived early to this place to find that the lady who was supposed to give us her highness's the Evil Queen's spellbook was working for an enemy to the Queen lands. We had no choice but to fight sirs, I had been knocked into a wall pretty badly when her highness the Evil Queen showed up to mercifully transport me a ways away from danger for some reason, last I had seen of the others they had little choice but to take Lady Raven and run, I believe that the others had managed to subdue the traitor lady too sirs. I made sure to keep low and transport myself further and further away from the battle until I ended up here."

"What others? How many people were with you? Do you know where they went?" The Headmaster demanded in quick succession.

"These guys… I don't know how they got here sirs, they weren't with the group who came with my Lady." Mira gestured to the four girls gathered protectively around her, no need for them to get into trouble, technically as the lone adult she should be the one to take all the blame as far as she was concerned.

"One moment we were taking a stroll through the woods the next moment we fall through a tripped out rabbit hole and we were here." Cerise agreed with Mira's statement unapologetically.

"Aside from Miss Queen who else was with you?" The Headmaster demanded.

Crap. He was really pushing for _names_. Apple and Faybelle were the only ones who could end up in big trouble if they were to be found out (since Raven was due to be transferred out of the school immediately after she freed Wonderland and Maddie, Lizzie, and Kitty's wanted, just as their parents wanted, for them to move back to Wonderland immediately). "The Queen of Hearts requested her sirs, she is keen on keeping my lady safe… A small group sir, myself, my lady, the students native to Wonderland, and… um… forgive me for drifting off topic but is it normal for the ground to be swaying?" Mira wobbled dramatically for effect.

"Thank you Miss Shards that will be all, could you four please go back through the rabbit hole you found and take her to the school infirmary? And while you're there could you please warn the faculty about this? We do not want students getting a surprise trip to Wonderland." Giles requested kindly.

"Tell 'em I'm still alive and kicking!" Mira requested as Ramona picked her up and carried her away. "They'd be worried by now, gave quite 'em a scare I'm afraid I did!"

"We can probably call them now that the quarantine is up." Blondie whispered to the witch quietly, discreetly glancing over her shoulder at the two men walking away with oddly purposeful direction, as if they knew exactly where to go. "And warn them that the Grimm bothers are coming."

"You can do that?" Mira asked one eye going wide (it hurt to open the other one too much seeing as how there was a pretty dark bruise forming over her brow).

XXX

"Mira!" Raven exclaimed in relief as the younger witch along with the others from the Wonderland group appeared on the giant mirror-screen in the student media room.

"I told you I'd be A-Okay didn't I?" Mira chuckled as she allowed Daring to carry her to one of the more comfortable chairs provided in the room. Most of the individuals who were in the know were their (save for Ginger who had won some sort of cooking competition and had to stay to receive her winnings, and Tiffany who couldn't get away from Edward long enough to attend (the spider-boy got pretty over protective of the blonde girl when he saw Mira and bought the simple explanation that she had accidentally fallen into a portal to Wonderland, he insisted that Tiffany stick close to him and that they both stayed far away from the forest. Tiffany only allowed this after Mira assured her in a cryptic way that everything was just _fine_ and everyone was _safe_ ).

"I say Darling, how did you end up over there?" Mira leaned forward slightly as she peered at the girl in question.

"She helped us escape on a bunch of flying carpets she brought with her." Kitty explained.

"I got worried that something bad might happen with so many bad guys running loose so I decided to tag along." Darling said in her defense, pointedly not looking at her brothers who were currently mute from a mixture of shock and the twitch that their beloved _little sister_ was currently in danger-filled Wonderland.

"And it was a good thing I did!" Darling snapped just as Daring opened his mouth. "I'm a Charming too ya know, just because I'm a girl means nothing, it never stopped mom from taking out that cave ogre or having fencing sparring sessions with daddy!"

That seemed to shut her brothers up but neither looked particularly happy about it.

"I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that _the_ _Evil Queen_ herself saved your behinds." Hunter shook his head, cradling a dozing Nevermore in his arms.

"Yeah well I'm glad she did." Lizzie piped up, gingerly touching her bandaged side beneath her nightgown. "That man Kline was obviously merely playing with us for the most part there, I don't even want to think about what might've happened if he had decided to get really serious with us. By the way did she manage to kill him?"

"No." Mira shook her head. "He escaped, unfortunately."

"The Evil Queen didn't seem to want to kill him." Blondie elaborated. "For the moment she had managed to capture him she had every intention to hand him over to the Queen of Hearts, but then he threatened the Grimm brother's lives and she had no choice but to let him go in favor of saving them! She actually bothered to save them!"

"He was a pretty stubborn bad guy." Cerise grumbled in agreement. "The Evil Queen all but crippled him and he still manages to escape."

"Wait, the Grimm brothers are in Wonderland?" Apple asked in mild alarm. "Did they see you?"

"Unfortunately." Mira sighed. "Somehow they knew that Raven was here, which was weird, but nobody else. I neglected to tell them about your and Faybelle's involvement, and I never knew about Darling so… seeing as how you all still have to go to school here and you're the only three who could get into serious trouble over all this so I only let slip the names of people who won't have to worry about getting detention to appease the brothers."

"You can get into trouble too." Apple insisted.

Mira snorted. "The Headmaster will be more concerned with my parental guardian insisting that I either take more combat classes or that I return home and join the reserves in the witch army in the event our lands have to go to war than he will be me breaking any school rules. In fact I'm fairly certain that he just might go easier on me once he gat's a glimpse of the crazy person who raised me." Because that's precisely what Maid Marion said she'd do if Clawstorms father ever found out that Mira was in Wonderland, she won the little contest that Clawstorm's friends had constructed to see who had the pleasure of masquerading as Mira Shard's parent. There were a surprising amount of them who wanted the chance to tear into the guy.

"Besides you guys should be more worried about the fact that the Grimm brothers are on their way." Mira continued, trying to slide a finger under the bandage covering a cut on her forehead to relieve the itchy feeling only to have her hand swatted away and held down by Blondie.

"Mira's right on that one." Briar crossed her arms. "The Grimm brothers acted as if they knew precisely where they were going."

"It's the Book!" Raven realized. "When we first got here it flew up to us out of nowhere, it's been spilling it's magic from it's seems ever since! The Grimm brothers are able to sense where the Book is as long as it's outside of the school campus's natural protections!"

"And it's leading them right for you." Faybelle sighed irritably as she hugged Raven from behind. "But Raven's transfer forms are in the folder on his desk, the Headmaster can't touch her."

"…Actually it sort of sounded like he was going to try…" Briar shifted uneasily. "Said something about emergency action and hiding Raven in a tower to protect her…"

A pause descended on the teens.

"Like that'll end well." Sparrow snorted in amusement and Hunter couldn't help but snicker at the idea too.

"He wouldn't _dare_!" Raven hissed outraged her magic flaring up most of the girls in the room looking just as vexed as the witch.

"He does realize how much trouble he'd be getting himself into if he even tried right?" Humphrey whispered to Dexter and Daring, pointing his chin to the females as they all vowed to give the Headmaster hell if he dared try to lock up the witch and practically vibrated with indignity. It was well known to all the teenaged boys at the school by now that for a bunch of maidens and princesses the girls at the school could be downright terrifying if they really wanted to be.

"My family's tea shop is way more safe than a musty old tower that can be exploded down from the base, if Raven needed safety she could always hide out there." Maddie sniffed.

"Towers are for keeping people _in_. They _suck_ at protecting people." Kitty shook her head at the sheer ridiculousness of the thought.

"Giles seemed to be more realistic about the whole thing." Briar informed a hint of approval in her voice. "He said that he wanted nothing to do with the Headmaster attempting to lock Raven away, he was just going to laugh when his brother's plan failed. And it _will_ fail."

"Giles does seem like the more level headed one." Apple agreed. "So what should we do when they get here?"

"Let my mother's scribe inform them that we will not be returning to school, the brothers don't _ever_ have to know about Apple or Faybelle, so once they find out that us from or adopted into Wonderland are no longer their students they will have no grounds to do anything, we, and our business will cease to be their problem." Lizzie intoned calmly. "Now as for the Book…"

"I'll take care of it." Apple promised a strange predatory gleam in her eye. "Faybelle and I will sneak back to school later when the coast is clear and gather Raven's things up so that she can just travel from here to the witch academy and not have to set one foot at Ever After."

"Thank you." Raven spoke softly to the princess, a soft, grateful smile on her lips.

Apple grabbed Raven's hand and molded herself to the witch's side. "It's no problem, I needed to grab my overnight bag anyway, I'm staying with you for the weekend remember? Just like I promised I would if you had to transfer." The princess stared at their entwined fingers with firm intensity.

Faybelle merely hummed once in token complaint at the princess's proximity, more concerned with the disturbing calm clarity that had settled in the princess's eyes, the fairy couldn't shake the feeling that something was off about the blonde human…

XXX

"Miss princess perfect has been… surprisingly useful and not at all indecisive about herself today." Faybelle murmured as she and Raven were walking across one of the roof courtyards of the Heart castle, most everyone was either spending time with their reunited loved ones or taking a well deserved catnap, the royal physician had prescribed Raven with a flask of something that would help the slightly nervous witch relax and sleep until it was time for her to go. But the witch wanted to walk around for a while, enjoy the sights and quiet, Faybelle decided to join her and take the chance to see Wonderland from a rather privileged view. "I don't know whether or not to be thankful or worried."

"I'm happy." Raven confessed. "She was really starting to scare me for a while there, not only was I starting to worry about my wellbeing as her roommate but I was also worried about her and what she'd do if her happy ending didn't live up to what she was hoping for."

"Having a fetish for being poisoned is more than a little worrying." Faybelle stated flatly.

"Actually I think that it's her mom that has that fetish, Apple was just conditioned to expect that good things will happen when she gets poisoned." Raven grimaced. "That and she once confessed to me that she felt nothing for Daring so..."

"A basis for a true happy marriage for sure." Faybelle rolled her eyes."Humans can be so strange sometimes, willingly getting themselves into situations that would benefit them the least, forcing others to conform to their boneheaded ideals and then have the nerve to stand dumbstruck when they've lost all of the friends that mattered and are living out unhappily ever after's. I may be loyal to my story titles but that's because it's about family honor and it's in my best interests, there is more than one way to skin a fairytale but because it has to be completely just like the story or no story at all with Apple I just might have to find Duchess a princess charming and poison her instead of Apple. And Briar? I have no clue as to what to do with her now that she's gone completely Rebel with an attitude and an electric fly swatter! She threatened to hit me with it if I dared to even try to get her anywhere near a spinning wheel! Ever since she's found out about her story obligations being a lie she's gotten downright vicious!"

Raven smiled sadly. "Loopholes and bending the rules to get an agreeable outcome don't appear to register on most human's brains, and when they do, like with Duchess, they are ostracized for it."

"Or are forced to leave their stories altogether because of all the people who would take joy in seeing you and your family suffer." Faybelle eyed the witch with open pity.

"Do you suppose that Apple, before she was knocked into harsh little reality, ever considered what things would be like for you after the story, or even what they were like for you before Legacy Day?" Faybelle asked after a quiet moment.

Raven slowed to a stop, contemplating the black and white chess tiled path thoughtfully.

"I don't think anything mattered to her more than me poisoning her." Raven said softly. "She held this blind faith that _everything_ would turn out all right, that by poisoning her I had the _power_ to _force_ everything to be all right for her. I was supposed to represent this ideal she had in her head that if she worked hard enough, was the best princess in school then I would deem her worthy and swoop in with my tricks and my attitude and just… make all the worries and the fears she had melt away. She said that she saw me more as a god than a mortal witch at the time and hearing her say that was just…"

"Horrible and unfair." Faybelle guessed. "Or at least that's what I'd be feeling."

"Gods often live lonely lives. Often choose to distance themselves from mortals for just this reason." Raven murmured hauntingly. "I'm sorry but… I am happy that she doesn't want to be Snow White any more; anybody else can go through the story and have that title without any issues but she… oh deities Faybelle I'm terrified that the fairytale just might've killed her! If I had known that she held such intense fanatic feelings towards this whole thing I would have… I don't know what I would have done to be honest, but if running away and being out of her reach would have help I would have happily withstood her hating me to the end of her days if it meant that… she ceased to have such destructive thoughts!"

"Unfortunately I agree with you." Faybelle sighed, looking at the twinkling lights falling from the sky. "And what's worse is that I would have ended up refusing to poison her anyway, I think, Apple has never been much concern for me in the past but had she not gotten her head in order after we became married I might've just have had to cut my losses with my obligations."

"What are your feelings towards her now?" Raven asked curiously. "When we first started out you really hated her."

"I'll admit that she's not so bad now, albeit she's still rather clingy of you." The fairy grumbled. "It's like you're married to me, you're _my_ faithful wife, but you have this jealous human concubine who just doesn't want to let up or bargain a sensible non-human system that'll make the three of us work."

Faybelle snickered when the witch blushed deep red at the analogy.

"How do you feel about all of this? About us… and Apple?" Faybelle asked curiously.

"Horribly complicated." Raven sighed, slumping her shoulders. "I had feelings for Apple before, but I knew that as long as she wanted her fairytale and that she wanted me to be this completely different person it would end in heartbreak, and then I married you, and I found out that I like being married to you so far, like I'm starting to… develop feelings for you I like it so much, but then Apple stopped wanting her fairytale and started to act more like the person I first fell for and… it's not monogamous. My feelings for what to do with you two would require more contemplation and a lot of open conversations with the two of you about it… but none of that matters because my instincts are screaming at me that something major is going to happen soon in regards to this conflict my kingdom has with our enemies and I need to focus fully on that. Whether I end up with either, both, or neither one of you does not matter to me right now. I _can't_ let it matter."

Faybelle flinched looking sheepish and almost apologetic. "Yeah okay you don't have to worry about me getting all emotional and demanding that you make a decision like some bad human actress in one of those trashy chick flicks that Duchess keeps dragging me kicking and screaming to. And if Apple cares about you nearly as much as you do her she won't have a problem with it either."

Raven giggled despite herself. "Sometimes it's good being in the real world where life or death situations take precedence over teenaged angst and very unexpected love triangles."

"At the very least the three of us are more badass than the triangle going on between Cupid, Dexter, and Sparrow." Faybelle snorted. "The girl just had to fall for a gay guy who was into bad boys in a band."

"I can top that, Daring has apparently developed his first real crush on my grandmother." Raven revealed with a particularly disturbed look on her face.

"Ouch." Faybelle winced sympathetically. "That's not even funny it's so sad, it's like a rooster falling for a full grown dragoness!"

"Which is why I'm staying out of it." Raven vowed tiredly. "I feel much better now, thank you."

"You're my wife." Faybelle shrugged as if that explained everything, leaning down and giving Raven a soft chaste kiss on the lips. "And personally I think that the normal dynamics of human love triangles are stupid and a lot less fun, I'm sure that something will be figured out."

XXX

Apple stood on the balcony of one of the many towers that made up the Heart castle, silently watching the exchange between the witch and fairy.

Raven was… happy in Faybelle's presence, she was… she felt safe enough to talk to the fairy let herself get close to Faybelle. Raven never asked to have such a complicated home life; she never asked to be the daughter to the Evil Queen…

…She never asked to have Apple as a roommate, making things feel worse and worse with each passing day…

"It was all a lie, Raven knew that Apple's fairytale was a sham from the start and that being near the princess would only cause her grief but the witch stayed, tried to works things out, tried to form a friendship that was kind, healthy, and sane…

And she tried to give Apple what the princess wanted more than anything in the world without getting hurt herself, because Apple was too caught up in herself to see, to ever listen long enough to look past the pretty lies of fairytales to the dark twisted truth that awaited the both of them. The lies were like dark vines that were twisting around ugly sharp gears that turned the movements of the tired old dance of the figures in the music box, the decay slowly creeping up until the clueless figures were engulfed and slowly broken bit by bit, all while the music played cheerfully on.

And maybe Raven had hoped that Apple would find happiness in her delusions, Raven certainly wasn't one to let Apple get hurt purposefully.

And now that Apple had bothered to listen, to _see_ , the princess realized that everything she had wanted to gain out of her fairytale… she actually already had all along in Raven.

But all because of a little old book filled with little old lies Apple's chances to get a real happily ever after were slipping further and further away.

The princess ran a finger down the spine of the Book of Legends.

Would all the lies disappear if the Book of twisted lies was no more? The princess couldn't help but wonder.

XXX

"I'm off to get some sleep, care to join me?" Raven offered shyly.

"In a bit, I want to fly around for a little while, enjoy having a win over the enemy and all." Faybelle shrugged, looking off to the side distractedly.

"Fair enough." Raven chuckled beginning to jog away. "I'll be seeing you!"

The witch continued on her walk, taking the long way back to the guest halls in order to enjoy the whole concept of being in a curse-free Wonderland and the warm fuzzy feeling that came with it.

That is until the sound of quiet grumbling and two aged hands appearing over a railing caught her attention.

"Headmaster?" Raven shrieked when she peered over the side to see the old man trying valiantly to keep hold of the railing in order to keep himself from plummeting hundreds of feet to the ground. "Headmaster you get yourself down from there this instant! It's dangerous playing around like that!" The witch snapped on instinct, as if she were talking to a young warlock.

"I wouldn't be making demands if I were you young lady!" Milton snapped back.

"You're climbing a wall without a safety net or rope!" The girl clutched at her hair. "How do I not have the right to make demands from a grown man who tries to scale a well guarded building with his bare hands? How did you even make it this far?"

"He used to have a flying strip o' cloth Lady Miss." A guard's voice could be heard coming from somewhere below. "But dun worry we shots its down with flamin' arrows."

"Real funny the way he leaped at de banister." A deeper voice snickered. "Got to hand it 't de odder guy, at least he knew how 't fly."

Raven glanced up to see Giles hovering above her head on a carpet; he smiled and waved at her, seemingly unconcerned by his brother's predicament.

"Oh for the love of-" Raven snarled shoving up her sleeves and taking off her gloves before igniting her arm in magic and grabbing the Headmaster's arm.

"Does did mean we can'ts shoot at 'im no more?" A high, disappointed voice asked.

"No more trying to kill these guys!" Raven ordered as she pushed her magic out to engulf the dangling man. "They pose no threat to the queen or her daughter but if you could please send up an armed escort to kindly help the Grimm brothers back into Ever After that would be very much appreciated!"

"You are in so much trouble young lady!" Milton pushed himself up as his granddaughter's magic helped levitate him and she helped guide him safely onto the solid footpath of a tower garden.

"I was in trouble long before I attended Ever After High!" Raven hissed spitefully. "What were you thinking trying to infiltrate one of the most secure castles known to have ever existed? Hex, what were you thinking traveling around Wonderland without an escort or documents for a safe passage? Mira told me how you two were nearly killed today! If my mother hadn't stepped in… are you actively trying to give me a coronary?"

"You're the one to talk about us putting ourselves in danger Miss Queen!" Milton argued back.

"I had five, count them, five Wonderland native guides, The Book of Legends, and as a surprise bonus, a mother trailing behind in the shadows with a mean streak a mile wide and two miles deep! Plus I had just lifted Wonderland and all of the other worlds from the fake curse my mother put on all of them! You may be sneaky Headmaster but if the wrong thing came by you it would be that unicorn incident all over again!" The witch shot at the man. "You need to stop putting yourself in danger for the sake of fairytales! Do you have any idea how guilty I'd feel if you up and kicked it because you were so terrified about the sky falling if the Book wasn't signed you decide to try to convince everybody otherwise only to end up falling off a cliff?"

"And whose fault is that?" Milton crossed his arms.

"Yours!" Raven exclaimed. "Nobody ordered you to get sat on by a giant, or dunk your hand in trolls tears, or nearly get gored by a unicorn! No one told you to go about that whole wishing well coin scam either! It was all you! I have enough to worry about with regaining my honor and protecting my family from being assassinated to even begin to worry about an old man willing to get himself killed for the sake of a story where I could be replaced so easily!"

"It's dangerous to go without the fairytales Miss Queen." Milton tried to reason in a more consoling tone, mollified slightly by the girl's argument.

"Not in my case it isn't!" Raven put her hands on her hips and stared down the older man. "My kingdom isn't protected by the fairytale legal agreements remember? Did you not read the file I left on your desk explaining it all?"

"I didn't have time because I took time out of my schedule to try to find you because I had just figured out that those abhorrent skin decorations mean that you're about to get married!" Milton gestured wildly. "You're too young to get married!"

Raven began gesturing too. "I'm seventeen!"

"Still too young!" Milton shot back.

"I am an adult and I am the future heir to the thrones of the King and Queen lands, and if I want to enter a marriage agreement to make a powerful ally and better the protection of the lives of my people so help me I will always choose this course of action over becoming the next Evil Queen in a purely ceremonial and over dramatized human ritual!" The girl growled with raw emotion.

"But that's not the only option that you have!" Milton shot back waiving his arms some more.

"My mother tried the scare-the-enemy-into-submission-because-she-is-the-freaking-Evil-Queen-and-to-hex-with-the-conciquentces option and it didn't work nearly as well as we needed it to!" Raven exclaimed.

"You could have asked for help!" Milton exclaimed.

"No I couldn't!"

"Yes you could!"

"No I can't!"

"Yes you can!"

Giles watched the two bicker and had a sudden, foreboding realization of what the possible near future was going to look like, and also that there was little doubt that stubbornness was indeed an inherited trait in their family.

"That's why I married Faybelle Thorn!" The witch shouted at last.

"Miss Thorn-? No, I'm talking about coming to myself and my brother for help!" Milton gestured at himself and his still hovering brother desperately.

"And what could you possibly do to help?" Raven demanded. "The Grimm family has to remain neutral at all costs! And if word got out that you had any involvement with you-should-who-know-by-now-since-he-just-tried-to-kill-you no matter how unintentional or in the dark you were about it all-"

"We could've protected you!" Milton cut in. "We can still protect you, if you could just please come with us-"

"I have a responsibility for the safety of my people-"

"You can't do anything if you're killed-"

"What can possibly be done by me hiding, you have no legal grounds to help-"

"I have a lot more grounds than you may think-"

"I can't involve you! I could be putting the school in danger-"

"No you won't be-"

"Yes I will and you know it!"

"Dis is better than television." Giles heard the voice from a guard listening in from far below.


	34. Chapter 34

It had taken some effort but the witch had finally agreed to have someone look over her while she rested for the night at least, to make sure that all would be well with the limitations her injuries had imposed on her.

Blondie contemplated Mira's sleeping form, the reporter found it odd to discover that the witch had been sleeping on a rolled out thin futon on her dorm balcony all this time and not in her assigned bed, that the witch complained that her bed was too soft, like she was laying on a marshmallow and was half afraid that she'd be swallowed up in the mattress.

Which was very odd because Blondie knew her mattresses and Mira's mattress was actually quite firm.

The blonde managed to convince the redhead to set up on the floor inside the dorm (it was a chilly day that was threatening to rain and no matter how much witches tended to adore the rain Blondie was certain that cold and moisture was not contusive for proper healing of open wounds), and once the witch was asleep Blondie found herself wandering around the near Spartan room.

Mira had always been an odd card, but in a good way as far as Blondie could tell, with her foreign mannerisms and her sharp intelligence she was a very capable girl and Blondie had little doubt that anything Mira chose to do in the future she'd work hard and achieve mastery of it.

But there was something more… witchy about Mira, it was more than just the fact that she was a witch, it was that she showed off that she was a witch more than the others at the school did, like she was not afraid of the strange looks she'd get from saying words like; "so mote it be" or "as is the will of the wyrdes", or when she openly took out her ball of twine and created intricate knot-work talismans during free time in class that she would later charge with magic after school on the student recreational lawns.

Blondie had always known that there was a nervousness in the hearts of the maidens and the princes of the school when it came to the villains practicing spells openly where somebody could potentially be hit by a curse, but it wasn't until Mira, a witch without a destiny, came around that people started to grow this awareness that… it wasn't just villains that they were nervous of, it was all witches and perhaps even all of the magic users in the school that they were weary of.

Which had shamed many, including Blondie, when the witch would look up and ask in a very innocently pointed way why so many people were so edgy over her making a good health charm for a wrinkly old crone back in her home village who had terrible arthritis in all of her joints, her mind flittering around cloud nine (whatever that was) so much that she couldn't take care of herself, near all her vision gone, and all of her teeth completely gone.

Blondie was starting to suspect that this wrinkly old crone never existed, what with the way she caught Mira snickering under her breath when all the nervous onlookers hung their heads in shame at their automatic assumption that just because she was a witch and being raised by a mirror meant that she was up to evil tricks, however the point wasn't that Mira was probably tricking them all with the crone sob story, the point was that she was a witch, and she liked being a witch out in the open because to _hex_ with unspoken human prejudices, and that was just it; she _knew_ that there was a prejudice, could probably feel it all around her every second of every day, so instead of politely acting human like all the other magic-users tended to do, she was daring some idiot human to come up to her and say something, voice their racism.

Nobody did, as far as Blondie knew, all the humans knew about the witch-hunts and the horrible things that _their_ very ancestors did, sometimes to their own children born with magic, all in the name of racial purity… they held no right to start screaming every time she'd cast a magic circle on the student recreational lawns and openly charge the charms she made in class free time, she knew it, they all knew it, and so they all were left to wallow in their human guilt.

Which told Blondie that Mira knew the sting of racism better than most witches or magic-users, and she was keen to not let that get in her way, to silently dare anybody to try to get in her way.

Mira also seemed to never have much to say about the Evil Queen, not anything bad, or good, the witch was unusually neutral, even after they all discovered that the Evil Queen was not really all that evil and that she never signed the Book for some reason. In a topic where everybody _had_ to have an opinion in some form or another, Mira appeared to have _none_.

Which told Blondie's instincts that perhaps Mira knew far more than she let on, and she was just waiting for everybody to catch up.

But what it was Blondie had no clue and as she lightly snooped around the other girl's things she just became more and more puzzled!

She found a book about micro-talismans by some mad scientist lady named Clawstorm Grimmbook laying openly on the girl's desk, a small package of the talismans Mira had made that week labeled to be shipped to a non-profit refugee facility in the Queen lands for the human folks trying to escape the tyranny of the neighboring four human kingdoms, notes and mathematical equations that the blonde couldn't hope to begin to decipher, a black memorial armband with a teacup meticulously embroidered on it for the memory of Wonderland being cursed, and in a hidden compartment in Mira's desk Blondie found a cache of worn, but very much cared for, pictures of Raven as a baby and little girl, the Good King, Lady Good King, Elenore Queen, and a dark haired woman (and sometimes a dark-haired man who looked very similar to the woman), who was smiling and happy and wearing bright colors and was young and had Mira's grey eyes…

Blondie looked at the back cover of the book where the lady mad scientist's picture was, then back to the photographs of the happy woman holding baby Raven in her arms, Raven's happy mother holding her firstborn baby daughter in her arms.

Raven's mother was also this lady mad scientist who also had Mira's exact shade of grey eyes…

Blondie turned to stare at Mira's sleeping form.

Was this very good reporter investigating or was this something else entirely?

XXX

"So he's been her grandfather all along?" Lizzie paced the room agitatedly.

"What should we do?" Kitty wondered. "Tell Raven? Not tell Raven? He's surely likely to cause issues down the line, there is no way a man who was willing to resort to that kind of trickery could be trusted. It's downright dangerous! And Raven has had the tendency of going soft with the old man, even when he's up to his tricks."

"Maybe not by Wonderlandian ways, but remember; he is of Ever After and that kind of irrational deceit is just another part of life there, there are no arts of rhymes of how to do such things properly there, and we have to tell Raven, whether we approve of it or not he is her family and apart of her tribe. It's probably the reason why she's been so lenient towards him and fretting over accidentally causing him stress heart attacks, on some level her instincts probably know the truth, maybe they've always known that he was family." Maddie decided sagely. "It's how witch instincts sometimes work."

"I need to meet with my mother in a few moments but I will bring this up with her." Lizzie vowed. "If we find any indication that he knowingly neglected Lady Elenore and his daughter and if he decides to be a problem, we can become his main issue very quickly." She said before making to stalk out of the room. "Let's pray for some peace and quiet though, I think that we all need a break right now."

XXX

After much contemplation Apple opened the Book to a random page, idly fingering the eraser still jamming the lock.

It started with one page, the paper ripping before shooting away in a ball of light was interesting, in an odd way, almost addicting really.

Then it was another page, then another and another, before long the princess found herself kneeling on the ground, trying to get better leverage as she tried to rip out larger and larger chunks of paper, sweat beading down her brow and feral sounds escaping her throat as her rage built up and every instinct in her body was crying out to kill, kill, kill so that she could finally live her own life, live her own dreams, live with the one she loved.

And if this _thing_ still existed, threatening all of that, threatened her potential for a real happy ending, well that was just not an option. It had to go.

The princess fell back when the Book of Legends released a wave of magic, freeing it from her clutches; in a big ball of paper yellow light it shot up and flew away.

Apple roared after it, shooting to her feet and slapping both hands to the railing in an effort to try to spot where her wounded victim had gone.

XXX

"Why are you so insistent on going about all of this madness!" Milton exclaimed throwing his arms up into the air. "Do have any idea of the consequences?"

"Of course I do!" Raven almost shrieked. "I spent _months_ researching my options before Legacy day! The political fallout, the impact on my people and family, all the people who had reportedly escaped their destinies before, I looked into every conceivable angle I could! If you could just sit down and listen to my side of things, put yourself into my shoes and see all of the political lions trying to use me and put their agendas ahead of the wellbeing of my family and people maybe you'd finally see that I had no choice, that I never had a choice but to rebel!"

"There probably was a choice but because you never asked for help you painted yourself into a corner!" Milton reasoned desperately.

"How could I possibly ask for help? Everybody was more concerned with me denying my true nature and personality in favor of acting like a hilariously bad caricature of this unattainable and very lonely ideal of a woman who is not only long dead but never actually acted just like the evil witch that everybody believed she was, acted as evil as everybody wanted me to become! They wanted me to be the favored person to hate and set blame upon even if I did nothing wrong!" Raven shouted to the sky in frustration. "How was I supposed to trust _anybody_ when they were more concerned with my ability to cackle evilly over the plight of my people!"

"Why are you being so unrelentingly stubborn?" Milton demanded after finally realizing that his argument with his granddaughter was going nowhere, both sides not giving up an inch.

"Why are you being so persistent? What has you so invested in what I do with my life and what my family does with their affairs?" Raven shot back heatedly and a little teary eyed.

Milton took a deep brave breath. "Because believe it or not I actually do care about the situation past your destiny, and, more importantly, because… because I'm your-"

Raven had reacted to it first; the rush of words flowing across her vision, her body convulsing in reaction to it, her tattoos beginning to glow a liquid gold color.

Giles hunched over himself like a startled animal and rubbed at his arms, trying to get whatever was crawling under his skin to stop.

Milton gasped in alarm, looking around wildly, trying to see past the thick incoming path of words as he sensed something coming right for them-

The Book of Legends sailed through the air and slammed into Raven's torso at top speed, parchment yellow magic spilling out of it and into Raven making the witch gasp before releasing a weak, startled scream as she fell.

The next conscious moment the witch felt arms hook under her and hoist her up from the ground, there was a lot of yelling over the long monotone ring in her ears, she caught a glimpse of the royal guards running towards them, a flash of bright green light that glowed behind the letters in her eyes and then she was suddenly in a forest with a lot of trees and then they were running but Raven couldn't see where to anymore because of the words in her eyes and the creeping feeling of losing her thoughts as her mind crumbled into unconsciousness.

XXX

Clawstorm convulsed, she was in the midst of having a seizure on the futon, between the words rushing past her eyes and the crawling sensation clawing under her skin and senses she felt someone pry open her mouth and stick something thin, long, and wooden between her teeth, keeping her tongue away from her teeth and keeping her teeth from grinding together. There was also a heavy weight that settled over her torso and held her twitching arms down as wave after wave of words bombarded her.

"Come on… come on… you're stronger than this… snap out of it, beat it, come one _snap out of it_!" Blondie's voice begged from above. "Come on Mira! Or whatever you like to be called, I'm your friend! _Please, please,_ _please_ snap out of it!"

XXX

Faybelle had heard about Apple's well wrapped up temper from Raven, how there was very little that could be done when the princess was on a full-blown war path, or even on the cusp of one, and Faybelle kind of understood what the witch had meant when she had warned Faybelle to _never ever_ get Apple so worked up that she got really angry. The fairy had seen glimpses of the mentioned temper before in past months after all, but seeing it almost completely unleashed was… well it was kind of way more of an impressive look on the princess than her usual hapless damsel act, Faybelle would admit that much.

It was more than just anger though, it was like this intricately woven thing that had just as much intelligence, royal personality, and this nearly wild sort of insanity as there was primal white-hot rage. Faybelle guessed that Apple was merely on the cusp of a warpath because of how the princess was simply silently standing there, like a volcano itching to erupt, Raven had said that Apple could get quite loud when she was really worked up but it was the before moments when the blonde was quietly stewing that were the most frightening.

There wasn't nearly as much crying or screaming as Faybelle had assumed there should have been when Apple found out about the Grimm brothers infiltrating the castle and taking advantage of Raven's trust that they, or at least the Headmaster, would at least be a decent human and go back to Ever After to sulk after she schooled him in an argument, and instead just simply decided to knock her out and kidnap her.

"If they don't let go of her soon I'm afraid that I'll have no choice but to declare martial law and take Raven back in a… not so very princess proper manner." Apple stated in an eerie tone, like she was commenting on the weather. "I'm sure that I can rally enough students to cause enough trouble to force him to let her go."

"…Really?" Maddie asked, sounding just as surprised as the rest of the room, and more than a little weary.

"Giles won't let the Headmaster harm her and Faybelle has already gained Raven's old title and signed the Book." Apple had stated in this very calm way with a voice that gave the fairy the impression of a type of cannibalistic fae. And the way that the guards that had retold the story to them had quietly started to scoot away meant that they could sense the danger rolling off of the princess in waves (although the fantastically terrifying expression she was making and the feral insane gleam in her very blue eyes was probably the main reason). " We can't go in arrows blazing quite yet, unfortunately, Raven and I have a deal; if the fights she picks are harmless to her person, or if she just needs some time away from me after one of our fights, I'm to give her a maximum of four to five hours before hunting her down."

"Aren't you worried about the Headmaster locking her away somewhere?" Kitty asked, eyeing the way the princess just barely managed to hold back snarling at the concept.

"I'd like to believe that the Headmaster of a school filled with future important rulers would not be stupid enough to start an uprising that would surely transpire if such an act were to be taken upon an individual who isn't even one of his students anymore." Apple slowly closed her eyes, her brow twitching.

"Raven can hold her ground very well in the face of overwhelming pressure." Apple breathed deeply. "One old man would be practically _nothing_ to her. And besides, Faybelle and I need time to get the remainder Raven's things ready to be shipped out by this evening and to check in on Mira since Raven won't have time to do so herself, after that is all finished then we can go and get her."

"And you're okay with this?" Lizzie asked.

"No I am not." Apple spoke severely. "But Raven tends to not like it when other people try to fight her own battles for her or if people overreact to things she views as completely harmless. Five hours tends to be right around the time her patience runs out and that's right about the time she'll accept help willingly… or break a window screen and jump out, whichever come first. She doesn't ever really see the Headmaster as a threat, that's probably still true even after this little stunt, as long as Giles is there to make sure his brother doesn't take things too far she'll only really ever see the man as just another human throwing a hissy fit over the tired old destiny issue."

"She does have a point, as much as it pains me to say it." Faybelle grumbled out begrudgingly. Because no matter how irritated Raven got at the Headmaster she never got really angry with him or hated him for just about anything, which was strange in Faybelle's opinion, but then again Raven was not a naturally vengeful individual.

"She's probably giving him those "I'm not angry just disappointed in you" looks right now, that always ruffles his feathers." Kitty snickered. "Even so, we should probably take our own precautions incase this goes sideways."

"Yes we should." Lizzie nodded. "Who knows how far he's willing to go with this. My mother and her advisors are sending out demands for an explanation as we speak but it would be really rather troublesome to involve the king and queen of Ever After in all of this if worse comes to worse."

Apple scowled at the mention of her parents. "My mom and my daddy must never be brought into this, they've already made their stances clear that they won't help out in anything related to Raven's mother." Or at least that was the impression Apple had gotten from their past behavior, really she was having trouble imagining her parents as being people to trust with anything relating to Raven right now.

"Say Lizzie… can I borrow that bat I saw in your old room?" Apple asks politely, making Lizzie freeze in a baffled sort of way because the only thing she had that even vaguely resembled the Ever After baseball hitting stick was a decorative three-ringed club that was traditionally placed in accessible locations for all royal children too young to wield a blade to defend themselves in case the castle was infiltrated.

"I'm asking because I highly doubt that Daring will let me borrow his sword." Apple clarified cheerfully.

"Princess do you even know _how_ to use a sword?" Faybelle asked eyeing the blonde suspiciously.

Apple rolled her eyes. "You wave it around and make slashing motions with it, I've seen it done hundreds of times by the princes. It's not really that difficult of a concept."

"I'm sure that you'll do just fine with the bat." Lizzie assured in the ensuing foreboding silence, making a mental note to give the princess the club made from the really soft rubbery materials.

XXX

"She's… tiny. I never thought that she'd ever look so small." Milton murmured brokenly as he gently slid the cushion under his granddaughter's unconscious head.

The bench that she was laying on was not ideal for anybody to be lying on but him and his brother had no choice but to act as quickly as possible with the materials at hand. It had been a near miracle that Milton remembered Clawstorm's forgery Book in time to save both the Book's power and his granddaughter from the rush of words trying to shelter themselves inside her head, the magic circle had been hastily drawn up to keep the words from needing to reside solely in the young girl's body, when Clawstorm's Book had been brought in the words had surged towards that immediately and now it was all a matter of waiting for the transfer from what was left from the old Book to the new.

"She's still very young." Giles reminded gently. "No matter how big or strong she's had to act to keep things held together, or to stand up to those who do not know the full scope of what she has to deal with."

"She never asked for help." Milton sat down heavily in a chair just outside the circle.

"She probably is very uncertain about whom she can trust and who can offer her any sort of useful help, or so she said so herself if you will recall." Giles pointed out.

"I know." Milton sighed in defeat. "She had her reasons, good reasons, but that still does not make it at all fair. A girl her age should only be concerned with… normal things, like tea parties and learning to advance her witch skills in her personal studies."

"Grandfather's school rules that prohibit normal types of non-destiny magic lessons still giving you troubles?" Giles asked with a silent, disappointed huff.

Milton grimaced. "It's not like I've ever stopped trying to get rid of those, but the wording he used… very difficult to get around, though up until recently I haven't had nearly as much pressure from parents to have those classes installed, thus far the academic magic classes are the only loophole that I've managed to find in the clause thus far."

"I know that you've never stopped trying to find ways around all of the barricades that grandfather had put up for the witches that come to this school and the law that does not allow them the same protections as the other kingdoms." Giles said kindly. "You do care, you've always cared."

"I know that fairytales aren't seen in the same light to witches and fairies as the humans see them." Milton sulked passing his hand through the circle's domed barrier to brush hair out of Raven's face. "I know that she doesn't see fairytales as anything more than a restricting hassle… but it didn't used to be that way, and maybe I've been a little too remiss not looking into issues that have arisen over the decades, but the Book and the traditions were created for a reason… to keep peace between Ever After kingdoms."

"And I'm sure that if you sat down and explained your side of things in the same reasonable manner you are talking to me right now, your granddaughter will listen to you." Giles nodded to himself. "She is a very logical oriented girl who asks questions, and when they aren't answered or are ignored that's when she tends to act out."

"…I suppose…" Milton hesitated. "She too… has good reasons. Very good reasons, for wanting to break free of her role, I just… I had just hoped, back when I had thought that all this was simply just a matter on honor that she could have found a way to regain it, to become the shining example of what the Queen family used to represent."

"But that doesn't seem to be possible, her political enemies have made it impossible." Giles reminded pointedly.

"No, you're right, it does seem that they have made it… impossible." Milton looked down as he finally admitted to what he had suspected but dared not voice. "It's not fair, she's too young to have to be worrying about things such as this! And Clawstorm…" The man trailed off. " _My_ daughter is out there, where she could get herself-…" He cuts himself off unable to finish.

Giles is silent for a moment. "Raven doesn't have to go about things all by herself. The questions we need to pose right now is; what is going on exactly, and how do we stop it?"

"And how to keep them safe." Milton sighed. "I… don't suppose that she'd perhaps let me send her off to a nice safe country under an assumed name and with a decent trust fund until all of this has blown over…"

Giles snorted in disbelief. "What do you think would happen?"

"…She'd find her way back and yell at me in front of the entire school." Milton predicted. "But it's nice to hope that she'd at least find my idea a tiny bit tempting."

"You're starting to sound more and more like a grandfather." Giles pointed out.

"I'm starting to feel more and more like a grandfather and a father." Milton admitted. "Though both my daughter and granddaughter do seem to be set on making my hair go white. But they are both rather exceptional witches in their own rights; did you _see_ the _size_ of those golems that _Clawstorm made_?"

XXX

Clawstorm's head hurt. And there was a limp weight watching her from her torso.

It had been years since Clawstorm was able to get any alcohol to get drunk enough to have a hangover, and she never got drunk enough to forget that she had hooked up the previous night with somebody, especially then because alcohol being the suppressant class drug it was only ever stayed fun for sleepovers if she just stayed buzzed, roaring drunk only ended up with her getting all depressed about shit and making dumb bets with Rafael to get her mind off of those sob story things and to try to make herself feel better.

"Hey." Someone tapped at her face. "Hey, wake up, it's not like I can call in a healer to tell me that you're okay while you're in this form. You need to tell me what's going on yourself. C'mon, up, up."

Clawstorm scrunched up her nose. "Chief?" She whispers hoarsely.

"Yep." Blondie confirms. "How do you feel?"

"Like I have the mother of all hangovers." Clawstorm groans slapping a hand over her aching eyes to block out the painful light trying to shine through her skin. "Just the headache and the eye soreness though, I don't feel queasy or dehydrated, and it doesn't hurt to have you speaking so loudly…"

"Not that a teenaged girl living a sheltered life has had any experience with such things." The witch adds after a pause.

"The ban of alcohol of all kinds at the school and village makes smuggling difficult but not impossible." Blondie says breezily. "Though it's adorable that you adults think otherwise."

Something about that sentence makes Clawstorm freeze, snapping her eyes open wide, and for more than one reason.

"You're a good person at heart." Blondie continues nonplussed by Cawstorm's panicked look and still laying limply on top of the woman. "I'm not afraid of you at least, I also understand why it's so important that people keep thinking that you're evil though, and I think of you as a pretty good friend so I'll keep you a secret." The girl sat up in the woman's lap. "Remember that in the next few moments of shock before you start to freak out."

Clawstorm slowly moved her head to the side, her wide eyes meeting her reflection's in the mirror that was hanging on the wall beside the futon. Her glamour and height-shift had disappeared sometime during her fit, leaving Clawstorm Queen, aka the Evil Queen, in plain view.

"Oh holy mother-… bad words that I should not say." Clawstorm squeaked out, her voice several octaves higher than normal.

"Definitely something a good mother would say." Blondie nodded to herself as if satisfied. "Sit up so that you can take the headache pills that I found in your bathroom's medical kit." Blondie ordered, placing said pills into the woman's clammy palm.

"Drink up." The girl prompted, holding up a glass of water helpfully when all the woman did was stare at her with wide, disbelieving eyes.

Finally, after another long moment Clawstorm sat up and did as she was told.

"You… you're not afraid of me." The witch mumbled dumbly. "But I'm evil."

Blondie gave the woman a flat look, producing the black band Clawstorm kept as a reminder (and a punishment) and holding it up for the witch to see. "Look me in the eye and tell me that your heart didn't break having to be responsible for this." The girl dared.

Clawstorm's bottom lip wobbled and to the woman's horror tears sprang immediately to her eyes.

"That's what I thought." Blondie nodded to herself, hugging the woman to her as the witch began to sob quietly.

"I did a lot of bad things." Clawstorm tried to remind the girl, even though she looked like just the opposite of an Evil Queen right now.

"There is nothing wrong with trying to protect the people you love." Blondie said kindly, producing a handkerchief. "It's a moral grey area, having no choice but to do doing bad things in order to do the right thing. And since I'm not one of those psychopaths, and Raven is my friend, you still don't scare me."

Clawstorm sniffled for a few more minutes, slowly giving up the instinct to fight or runaway or the throbbing ache in her brain and just focused on the soothing hands rubbing her back.

"I really hope nobody comes barging in." The witch comments after a few minutes of putting herself back together and taking an assessment of just how things looked like in the mirror. Which makes her cringe and feel all creepy inside.

"If I get off what are the chances of you running off?" Blondie asks.

"Um…" Clawstorm bites her lip. "Honestly…?"

"You better hope that nobody barges in." Blondie concludes, making a great show of getting comfortable in the woman's lap. "Because I'm not getting off until we figure out what just happened to you and I can be assured that you won't run off and disappear into the forest."

Clawstorm bit her lip again. "Well I might just be safer for everybody if I-"

"You aren't going anywhere." Blondie ordered in a savage tone, one eye trained unblinking at the woman and leaning forwards until the witch found herself lying back onto the floor just to get away from that stare.

"Or I could stay here." Clawstorm hummed all innocent-like.

Any idea on what just happened with you?" Blondie asked.

"Give me a second to assess everything in my head, there was something familiar about that feeling that passed over, but aside from the fact that it had come from somewhere outside my body, it was so overwhelming that I couldn't discern what it was before… you know." The witch shrugged closing her eyes.

"You make your brain sound like a computer." Blondie commented, only to be met with silence.

"Uh… Mira? Raven's mom? Hello?" Blondie asked the unconscious woman nervously.

"I'm not putting up with this again." Blondie decided pinching the woman's side, hard.

"Ow! What?" Clawstorm whined as she jumped into the waking world.

"Warn me next time you do that." Blondie hissed.

"You sound like my old roommate." The witch grumbled. "Someone's messed with the Book of Legends again, I… let's just say that I've always been able to sense where that blasted thing was, I can sense my daughter's magic signature with it as well as two others that are close by her, that would be the Headmaster and Giles to be more precise. I… wouldn't be too concerned about things quite yet… my instincts are saying that there is no danger, and to be honest my head is killing me so… I think I can afford five minutes before storming the Headmaster's chambers."

"So he really is your father. Raven said that servants could sense the Book, and what I heard while I was in wonderland and you were kicking that guy's butt…" Blondie realized in an awed voice. "I heard that Kline guy refer to him as such! If you will remember that _I was_ there while he and you were facing off." The reporter reminded.

Clawstorm deflated. "Yeah… the news is still a surprise to me, along with the fact that apparently I unintentionally signed myself up as the next servant to the Book so… awkward much ya know?"

"I bet." Blondie huffed sympathetically. "Are you worried about Raven? And what the Headmaster might do to her?"

The witch was silent for a moment.

"He treats her better." The woman admitted in a small voice. "If it were me in her hat I'd be worried because he doesn't like me much… but he treats her better, and with a lot more respect. Giles is there too so I know that she's safe, and with the way everyone has been going on about my daughter standing up to the most powerful group of youth in several worlds… I'm not too worried. I'm still going to come for her, I don't trust either of those two ninnies that much with my kid, but I trust them enough to alert Faybelle to her location and have her get my daughter."

"You're not going in yourself?" Blondie asked.

Clawstorm shook her head. "I can't get too close to the offices unless I want them to sense me and my bond… it's a weird Book servant thing, we can sort of sense where each other is if the conditions are right, and right now the conditions are very right."

"Well that's rather inconvenient for you." Blondie shuttered at the creepy thought.

"Tell me about it." Clawstorm snorted.


	35. Chapter 35

"Any indication how long she's been out?" The headmaster's gruff quiet voice pulled Raven out from the cottony muddled darkness of her mind, she felt someone gently running their knuckles over the short hair on her head in a soothing manner, it felt comforting.

"Quite a while." Giles whispered back. "And she left in a hurry, found a lot of books hidden behind a bunch of mirrors and a handwritten manuscript for a new book about micro-talismans. Odd thing though, many of the mirrors closest to the study are all blocked from the mirror realm, it's as if somebody has put privacy spells on almost all the mirrors in the school, and I found this big row of mirrors spelled for the monster dimension I asked one of the interns that were studying under Clawstorm and they said that she left for a year's vacation sabbatical to enjoy since she discovered a way to escape the mirror realm. I believe that it was a day or two after I got back and you had that informative little chat with her."

"Then who was that standing in the distance all this time?" The Headmaster's voice sounded incredulous. "I know that I was talking to _something_!"

"That was the mannequin that had been stolen from the village all those weeks ago, she dressed it up in her dress and crown." Giles supplied helpfully.

There was a smacking sound like someone hitting the palm of their hand to their face.

Raven bravely cracked open her eyes, squeezing them shut again with a pained little mewl when the light from the magic circle and the glowing object sitting on a stand in front of her hit her sensitive eyes.

"Raven?" The Headmaster asked, her name falling from his mouth so naturally that it took a moment for Raven to comprehend the oddity of it.

"M' head hurts…" Raven whines weakly. "From the inside, something ran through it the wrong way, it's all sore."

"Are there any words still flying around?" The Headmaster asks gently, Raven senses someone kneeling down beside the platform she was laying back down on.

Raven concentrates, burying her face slightly into the pillow under her head. "One or two every so often… those aren't from my head though, they're… from outside… what- what are they?"

"They're from the Book of Legends." The Headmaster explains. "Someone tried to destroy it so it's using you and your magical abilities as a conduit for it's power to flow from it's old form to it's new one."

"It's using me to save itself?" Raven squinted and blinked rapidly at the glowing object on the pedestal, once her eyes had the chance to adjust she could clearly make out the torn and ripped leather cover, the bits of pages hanging in limp torn shreds, the shattered jewel that used to shine proudly on the front cover and-

"Are those _teeth_ _marks_?" Raven asked in shocked bewilderment.

"Yes." The Headmaster's tone was slightly miffed. "We think that a particularly vicious creature tried to eat it."

"But I left the Book in Apple's care, there is no way that she'd let anything happen to it… I mean sure she's been having some serious reconsiderations of her destiny after she found out about all the bad stuff her parents did but… the Book never did anything to her." Raven gazed at the object pityingly; missing the wide-eyed looks the brothers were giving each other.

"I probably shouldn't have told you two that." Raven groaned, the soreness in her head obviously affecting the mental filters from her brain to her mouth. "Forget I even said that I beg of you. My mind's all jumbled up and sore so don't take anything I might say seriously."

"If you have the presence of mind to say that then it makes it kind of difficult for us not to take you seriously." Giles snorted. "Just a heads up."

"What was the last thing you remember?" Milton asked, deciding that the girl wasn't in the right state to press on anything destiny related at the moment.

Raven scrunched up her face and gingerly tried to remember through the sore throbbing in her head.

"We were fighting… it was the worst fight that I've ever had with you. You and Giles had nearly given me a heart attack when you snuck into the castle and we… we just started yelling the moment we saw each other. Did you even try to ask about our whereabouts properly before you decided to-" Raven winced and whined in pain when her raising voice caused a sharp pain to strike across the backs of her eyes. "Sorry." She whispered painfully. "I need to try not to get so worked up."

Milton took a calming breath as well. "They told us that you and your friends were no longer students at Ever After, they handed us the transfer forms and sent us on our way. We found a bunch of flying carpets that somebody left outside, gave our escort the slip and… I'm certain that you can guess the rest."

Raven was silent for a moment. "Why did you do that? I thought that… maybe you would be relieved to have me gone? It's not unheard of for characters from the story Alice in Wonderland to stay in Wonderland and not attend Ever After High, that's what the previous generation did so I know that it wasn't about Maddie, or Kitty, or Lizzie… am I wrong?"

"You were the one that we had wanted to find." Milton admitted.

"Why?" Raven asked her voice cracking. "I'm one of the worst students you've got… the only good thing I've ever done for this place's bottom line was to marry Faybelle and offer up a better villain for the Evil Queen role. Isn't that all that matters to you-?"

"No!" Milton exclaimed making the witch flinch back. "No." He repeated in a softer tone. "There is more to this than the stories… my brother and I found out about some of the problems your kingdom is having, and your mother-… we just saw your mother fighting off a very bad man, a warlock named Kline… you probably already know that he's part of a group that has been hunting… your people. We are _worried_ child, this is going to sound odd coming from me, but this is something that is far more urgent than the fairytale issue!"

"He's hunting me people and my family." Raven corrected her voice wobbled as she blinked back tears. "A witch hunting his own kind, what kind of sense does that make?"

Milton took another deep breath before continuing. "You told me once that your grandmother had been injured…"

"They poisoned her." Raven breathed.

"What?" Milton spoke, shaken. Giles tensed inhaling sharply.

"There was an attack on our lands, they had sent a very large rock that had fallen from the sky, it would have hit one of our cities but my grandmother and some parliament members were able to erect massive shields to bounce it away from our lands. But as a result they had all been left unconscious, defenseless for a period of time, somehow the bad guys found out about my mother and her side career… my mother had invented something while she was at school in this other dimension… w-we found evidence that somebody over there had sold the bad guys a twisted modified version of her invention, and while my grandmother was vulnerable they swooped in and poisoned her. They cursed her with illness if she were to ever set foot onto her own lands- but… but she-" The girl tried to control the sobs that were trying to break free from her mouth.

"Our lands are connected to our family bloodline." Raven explained. "Thousands of years of protections and defenses can only be accessed by our DNA, the clan has been there so long that the land and us have evolved to rely solely on each other, grandmother could not just leave it defenseless, I was too young to handle the full scope of the magic our lands have and my mother had gone off to try to frighten the enemy into submission by becoming a _real_ Evil Queen, so she put a second curse upon herself, permanently bonding her powers to the land so that if needed she could give up the last of herself to protect us again if another attack ever happened. She was really sick for years because of it… it wasn't until recently when they figured out how to lift the first curse off of her, but she's still very weak."

Milton bowed his head, his lips pressed together in a thin line.

"The micro-talismans." Giles breathed.

"You know?" Raven sniffed.

"We've done our research." Giles confessed. "And it's not that difficult to put the pieces together.

"We had no way of protecting ourselves." Raven stated in a nearly pleading tone. "We are not under the protections of fairytale law but because we are a fairytale kingdom the Grand Coven could not come to our aide if we were attacked again, and because of my mother and the weak state of my grandmother the High Council of Witches refused to lend us aide unless I gave up the throne, bit the poisoned apple before it ever got near Apple White, and succumbed to whatever they demanded of me after they smuggled my unconscious body away and after they settled on my punishment."

Milton bristled.

"Was the councilman who suggested this by perchance a man named Tomak?" Giles asked wearily.

Raven nodded miserably. "He's the senior councilmember and the head of the honorable affairs court, his vote made the decision to hold my family's name under dishonorable reprimand a slim majority."

"I bet he did." Milton nearly snarled clenching his fists as he remembered what he had overheard while his daughter had fought the warlock's son.

"And then you decided to rebel." Giles concluded.

"It was the only option I could think of to escape that fate." Raven admitted. "I did not know who to trust or who had the capabilities to be of any use to me here at Ever After so I kept silent and prayed that things would work out eventually… and then a few months ago I found out a way of legally regaining my family's honor by marrying into an honorable villain family and… here I am."

The witch noticed an odd box being held in her loosely crossed arms. "What am I holding?" Raven asked before the Headmaster could question why he hadn't been an option for help for the witch.

The Headmaster breathed, forcing himself to be calm, he cleared his throat, focusing at the issue at hand. "The replica of the Book your mother had forged was of very good value, and although not the real thing, it does have all of the functions and magical necessities that the real Book has- _had_ , after I had it scrubbed clean of all if it's initial information I had it sent back here for further study… when the old Book was damaged we cast a circle to keep all the information safely in and to keep it from flowing all into you, we took a gamble that your mother's Book could hold all of the original's words… and so far it seems to be doing so, with some room to spare." The older man noted with a touch of pride in his voice.

"The Book is alive." Raven realized. "It has memories and names of all those people, so many personalities living in one place it has to have formed some form of… sentience or life."

"Very good." The Headmaster smiled kindly, proudly. "How did you know about its memories?"

Raven bit her lip indecisively; eyeing the way Giles was whistling innocently and concluding that he had not told his brother about how he had gotten his speech back. "I…I've been… inside the Book's memories before…" She said truthfully. "It's a long story, and I was just a little girl at the time… my mother hid the two of us there after… after the bad man that nearly killed you two earlier in Wonderland… tried to-…" The witch swallowed thickly. "I had been drugged, I vaguely remember that there was a ritual of some sort, he had spoken my funeral rights and my back hurt a lot, but then mom came, they fought, and we escaped somehow into the Book's memories. I… don't remember much, but I do remember my mother, talking with one of the memories… they helped her patch me up."

Milton felt a stab of pain and cold fear in his chest. "Your mother had mentioned something about an assassination attempt on your life…" He trailed off, swallowing down the lump forming in his throat.

"Why is the Book of Legends coming to me for safety?" Raven asked. "My head may be a little jumbled and it hurts to think, but I distinctly remember starting the whole Rebel thing, I would think that it'd be afraid of me. And besides I thought that only the Servants to it, your family line, could do… well just about anything with it."

Milton took in a sharp breath. This was it; this was the moment of truth. "…You and your mother are Grimm descendants." He admitted holding his breath for a reaction. "That's why it came to you."

There was a pause.

"Huh." Was all that Raven had to say about the matter before shrugging lightly. "Well I guess that makes sense."

"It does?" Milton asked weakly.

"Well… I know that my family has loomed witches with several Charming clans over the years, it's not that much of a stretch to imagine someone having an affair with one of your ancestors." Raven shrugged again causing Giles to chuckle behind his hands while Milton just stared at the girl. "So how far apart are we removed? Six times? Or was it farther back from that?"

Milton ran his hand through his hair. "No… we're… a lot closer in relation than that…" He coughed. "I'myourgrandfatheractually."

"Could you repeat that? My head's too foggy to decipher." The girl requested.

"He said that he's your grandfather." Giles supplied helpfully making his brother cringe.

"Oh okay." Raven hummed blissfully until the words actually sunk in; that's when her eyes shot open as wide as they could go. "Eh… what?"

XXX

"This is it?" Faybelle asked staring at the large, but lone duffle bag full of clothes lying innocently on Raven's former bed.

"Heartbreaking isn't it?" Apple sighed in exasperation. "She said that she'll be spending most of her time catching up on witch studies so she'll only really be needed to wear her new uniforms for the majority of the time, she even sent her two official ballroom and character representing dresses back to her father's estate. I don't think that she's planning on ever wearing those ever again, the only fancy dresses she has is her wedding dress and this outfit she got right after she came back from the first round of marriage rituals to you."

"Please tell me she wasn't planning on wearing those ugly t-shirt and boy short combinations when she was not in school." Faybelle groaned.

"She was planning on wearing those ugly t-shirt and boy short combinations when she was not in school." Apple stated flatly.

"Downright criminal." Faybelle grimaced. "Please tell me that you-"

"Hex yes I did." Apple swore unzipping the duffle bag and unfolding one of the light casual dresses that she had replaced the witch's t-shirts with. "Last night while she was sleeping I switched those out with some of these! She can't complain because they are fashionable, sensible, not full of holes, and stain resistant. All the things that those crimes against fashion aren't."

"How long is it going to take to convince her that she doesn't have to constantly prepare to live life on the run, or to live in the middle of nowhere? Her pet dragon has more things to wear than she does! And Nevermore tends to like to go around naked most of the time!"

"Two suit cases and a duffle bag… she must have already packed everything else while I had been getting ready this morning." Apple pursed her lips as she cast a glare at said objects. "And it looks like most of the stuff in the suitcases are books, photographs, her brewing supplies, and Nevermore's stuff. Even the cauldron was small enough to fit into one of them."

"So technically she's all packed?" Faybelle observed. "But we just got here five minutes ago!"

"She really doesn't want anything to do with Evil Queen regalia, so this is it. This is everything that she considers hers." Apple sighed, looking around at everything else, the dark and foreboding things that she had gotten for Raven back when the witch first moved in. The princess felt a sense of overwhelming embarrassment when she looked at the objects now, none of it fit Raven's personality or preferences at all. It was all just a projection that the princess had placed upon that side of the room, a dollhouse to put Raven in, dress her up, pretend that she was someone- _something_ else…

"I can't believe she let me do this to her." Apple groaned, half hiding her face into her hand.

The fairy stared at the princess in contemplation. "We still have three hours until we are scheduled to rescue my wife. Three hours with nothing to do but to hang out with each other…"

"Let's get our girl." Apple decided as she headed for the door.

XXX

"I'm… your grandfather." Milton repeated nervously, holding his breath.

Raven stared at the man; the reflection of lights in the surrounding area shining off her eyes the same way it would a cat's.

Milton bit his lip and stared back.

Raven seemed to pale as she continued to stare.

Milton braced himself for the shouting.

"Are you sure?" Raven croaked out hoarsely.

"Very." Milton nodded weakly.

"Grandmother is going to kill me…" The girl whimpered in fear.

"Pardon?" Milton asked.

"So… you're not going to yell at him?" Giles asked dodging his brother's swatting hand.

"It's not uncommon for humans to try to avoid claiming paternity or Evil Queens to simply not tell the humans that they were fathers, that's just a fact of life in my family, hence why there are no Queen-Charming's in the family trees, but grandmother told me specifically _never_ to tell my grandfather that he was my grandfather if I ever found out who he was and here I go unknowingly not only doing just that, but also admitting to his face that grandmother never really got over him and that she still loved him!" The witch squealed fretfully covering her face in her hands. "You never knew until… when was it? It had to be that coin incident right? You had no idea before then?"

"None whatsoever." Milton swore. "But I can't say that I'm not happy about it. Surprised, and very shocked, but still very happy to be honest."

"You are?" Raven croaked confused, pulling her hands down from her face.

"Very." Milton assured placing his large hand over her two small ones. "I… know that you've had to be very brave in recent months. I'm proud of you for enduring all of that."

"Who would have imagined that my grandfather would be practically under my nose this entire time." Raven chuckled weakly. "Hi."

Milton smiled back, his eyes misting over. "Hello granddaughter."

"He found out about it unintentionally." Giles informed usefully. "I'm sure your grandmother will forgive you."

"I'm not so sure that she'll see me spilling all of her most top secrets to him as something to just let slide." The girl bemoaned tragically.

"This is also true." Giles nodded.

"Brother!" Milton admonished before turning back towards his newly acquainted granddaughter, a question coming to mind. "So you're saying that if you had found out about me before I found out about you and your mother, you would have kept this a secret from me?"

"Yes, no… maybe? It all depended on whether or not I decided to stick to Queen tradition or go with my father's family human values, but at least I would have made absolutely sure to keep what is between you and my grandmother completely your business." Raven sighed feeling tired.

"I suppose that's fair enough." Milton hummed, squeezing the girl's shoulder in an effort to comfort her. "A lot better than what I had feared actually."

"It explains why you have been following me around… kind of a relief actually." Raven admitted.

"He was gathering up the courage to tell you." Giles assured. "He wasn't being creepy just a worrywart."

Milton sighed despairingly.

"You're in danger." Raven whispered hoarsely after a quiet pause. "My grandmother… she never wanted to keep mom a secret from you, but she had to, they made her, they said- they said that-"

"They'd kill me if she ever got near me." Milton nodded. "I've had the time to read over that folder you left for me."

That stunned the witch. "How long have I been… where am I?" Raven asked, looking around curiously.

"You're back at school, you've been out for a few hours." Milton informed gently. "It takes a while for the Book to transfer power."

Raven looked down to the new Book that she was holding, to her surprise she found that her skin and her mother's book were glowing slightly, the Book was illuminating a pale moonlight white color and she had a thin sheen of purple covering her skin, her tattoos shining a golden light from their painted on lines.

"What was Miss White doing in Wonderland?" Giles asked suspiciously.

"Nothing wrong or illegal now that the curse is gone and she did nothing to get into trouble for." Raven's wide eyes blinked at the man innocently.

"Uh huh." Giles said not convinced. "And you gave her the Book to look after?"

"She could have been startled by some flying creature like a jabberwocky or something and dropped it." Raven theorized. "It could have landed on someone… or something, people over there really don't like it when stuff falls on them."

"Why is Miss White rethinking her destiny?" Giles tried again.

Raven sighed through her nose. "Complicated family stuff mostly… that and she found out that there were some… discrepancies between the story of Snow White she had been told as a child and the, um, actual historical events."

"Does this have anything to do with how Giles got his speech back and why Miss Cheshire has been boasting to anybody that will listen that she defeated three angry bears with her bare hands?" Milton asked, casting his brother a flat look.

"I had a talk with the original Snow White in the Book's memories." Raven explained. "Daring… he got to see inside my story…"

"Yes, well every family has discrepancies in the stories told and the historical events." Milton shook his head. "It's nothing to get bent out of shape over."

Raven cringed. "Snow White married a necrophiliac and the Evil Queen wasn't evil at all, she just wanted to bring her unwed pregnant step-daughter back safely. She got killed for her troubles."

"Oh." Milton winced.

"Daring had it the worst though, the magic mirror memory showed him… images of the necrophiliac. He's still seeing a therapist over it." Raven hummed guiltily.

"You mentioned Apple had complicated family matters, is everything all right for her at home?" Giles continued unrelenting and concerned.

The way that the witch cringed and bit her lip was all the answer that the men needed.

"I… can't tell you without her permission." The witch said at last. "And I have to be leaving soon anyway. I'm sorry."

"You're not going anywhere. The events from today prove that things are too dangerous." Milton denied with a firm shake of his head. "I know that I may not give the impression of it, but I do care about the safety of you and the rest of my students beyond their fairytale obligations… even if you were coerced in your time of crisis to marry away your title." The old man looked at the girl pointedly.

Raven's eyes widened. "How did you-? _Faybelle_ …" The witch growled. "She just couldn't resist boasting could she?"

"She left a card in the folder." Milton told her in mock cheer. "Claiming you as her stolen maiden wife and declaring her fancy new title. By the way after all of this is done you and I are going to sit down and you are going to explain what had caused you to feel like you had to go that far to gain such a powerful ally, no tricks, no Headmaster and student politics, just a talk between a worried grandfather and his granddaughter all right?"

"I had very dire reasons to go that far I assure you." Raven promised.

"I know that you do." Milton smiled sadly. "I'm starting to see that you've had good reasons for everything you've done in the past."

"Faybelle is soooo much trouble when I get my hands on her." Raven seethed.

"You don't have to take on these people all by yourself Raven." Giles reminded gently. "We are no slouches when it comes to these matters either you know."

"The Thorn clan is shipping me off to Hathor Witch Academy, the one in the Middle-Sea region." Raven sighed apologetically. "Even if I wanted to stay, which I do, I can't! It's a miracle that they let me stay here this long! And besides that, my grandmother works there and a significant majority of my cousins are there too. You'd have to declare yourself as my grandfather to get at least _some_ grounds to get me to stay here without a major fight and in doing so you might as well paint a giant target ring on your forehead for the bad guys!"

"Then I'll just declare my rights only to the Thorn clan, and even if I can't manage to convince them to let you stay, they can't deny you free reign to your ancestral homes and territories to return to anytime you wanted." Milton pointed out. "Ever After High and the Grimm estates are all as safe as Hathor Academy, the only difference is that it's neutral territory here, the Thorn clan holds no influence over you."

"You're willing to do that?" Raven asked so hopefully that it almost broke Milton's heart.

"Just sit tight and I'll contact the Thorns after I return the Queen of Heart's calls, I dare say she thinks that I kidnapped you." Milton chuckled sheepishly.

"I think that I'd better call Apple and assure her that I'm fine and more importantly _not_ kidnapped right away." Raven breathed in a terrified tone. "We agreed a long time ago that she's only got a four to five hour waiting tolerance for me to disappear and find my own way out after things get crazy and she knows for a fact that I am in not danger of lying dead in a gutter somewhere before she-"

" _Raven? Raven if you're somewhere in here yell and we'll get you out! I can take on the Grimm brother's no problem! I have a bat and I'm not afraid to use it_!" Apple's voice shouted out almost on cue, several banging sounds and Faybelle laughing out; " _Geeze are you secretly strong! I'm starting to actually like you just a little bit_!"

"What in tarnation?" Milton murmured. "Giles quit hiding under that desk and help me deal with this." The older man hissed to his younger brother.

"Nope. I don't feel particularly suicidal today!" Giles whispered, not ashamed whatsoever. He had watched over some of the goings on of the school on his enchanted mirror down in the library so he knew how scary Apple White could be when she was in a mood.

Raven struggled to sit up only to find that her body was distressingly unresponsive. "Help me up and hand me a phone." Raven pled to her grandfather.

Milton patted her head reassuringly. "I can take care-"

"I know you can, but please trust me when I tell you that I can probably settle this and avoid a fight or people getting into trouble." Raven assured. "I'm trusting you so please try to trust me too."

Milton hesitated before sighing in defeat.

XXX

"I'm not being held against my will! You can cease your rescue mission!" Raven said first thing when Apple answered her phone and both she and Faybelle popped up on screen.

"You're glowing." Faybelle observed. "Are you under a spell?"

Raven rolled her eyes. "If I was under a spell I would be smiling creepily and breaking out into song about how much I want to become the Evil Queen."

"People break out into song when they're under a spell?" Apple asked.

"Only if they're trying to alert their friends that they are under a spell." Raven explained quickly. "Most spells are designed to allow any embellishments that support the caster's master plan. Which I can assure you I am not so if you and Faybelle can pretty please back off your siege of the Headmaster's offices that would be fantastic!"

Faybelle raised her brow. "You aren't a student anymore, he has no right to hold you here." She reminded.

"He's not holding me against my will." Raven tried to assure. "He's actually making sure that I'll be okay after… it's kind of difficult to explain… they think that somebody tried to eat or kill the Book of Legends and for some reason it had decided that I would be a pretty good temporary outlet for it's magical information. The Grimm brothers had to bring me back here to…" She looks over to her grandfather for help.

"Purge your system and redirect the magic into another artifact." Milton intoned helpfully.

"Right, they're helping me by doing that." Raven leaned further back against the bench holding her upright. "And that is why I'm glowing, I'm still being purged of the Book's magic."

Apple bristled. "Are you saying… that the Book of Legends is- is using you as a _host_? Like a _parasite_?" She demanded.

"Apple, Faybelle I am _fine_." Raven emphasized. "I promise to check in every hour until I've got a clean bill of health from the Grimm brothers, just please stop whatever you are currently planning because I am in no danger of being locked in a tower!"

"How can we be sure he won't do that?" Hunter's voice called out from the background.

"How many-? No never mind I don't want to know. Just trust me on this all right? I am fine and I am not being held against my will." Raven assured in the most persuasive tone that she could summon with a hoarse voice.

"We want to see you." Faybelle piped up.

"You can after the Book has finished with me, I don't know when that is but I will call the both of you when it is all done." The witch swore. "Just please wait a bit until then?"

Neither princess nor fairy looked happy.

"Please?" Raven asked again.

"We'll be back in _two_ hours, we will be expecting to see you then, and _we will_ be expecting that once an hour call." Apple told the witch sternly.

"I'm sure that I can convince the Headmaster to comply." Raven assured. "Thank you both, I'll call you later, bye." The witch said before hanging up.

"Actually they could have been allowed in here to keep you company." Milton informed his granddaughter. "And enough of the Book's powers has been cleaned out of you that it is safe for you to leave the magic circle.

"Yes but if Faybelle were to be present I'd have to tell her, as per our transparency agreement, that you are my grandfather and that you were planning on giving me an option to return to this school, she would have warned her family, who want me to stay in places under their control, and they would have legal obstacles prepared for you the second you called them. And I'm pretty sure that while you were busy arguing with the Evil Fairy my wife and Apple would have used the opportunity to smuggle me away." Raven told the elder man. "You've just been bought two hours to get the drop on my in-laws, I'm willing to give this trusting you business a try."

"…You are definitely Elenore's granddaughter." Milton chuckled shaking his head.


	36. Chapter 36

Cedar felt… weird.

It was different from any normal weird feelings she had ever gotten in the past, being made of wood sort of limited the things that she could feel, her father described the few sensations she could feel as just a byproduct of being held together and existing by magic, that once she became a real girl she should be prepared to feel a little overwhelmed when the actual feeling of touch and the sensation of blood flowing through her new veins became apparent.

That's what made this strange sensation she was feeling at the moment so odd, because as she was stumbling her way up the stairs leading to her and Cerise's dorm room she could… _feel_ that the smoothness of the brass stair railing was more than what she had ever felt before, the warmth radiating from her body and the chill… the chill that came from the spring air around her… she could feel that, the drafty breeze that collected up and down the stairs, and she could have sworn that the chill was making the wood on the surface of her bare legs and arm tighten and when she looked closely the surface of the wood on her arms had formed tiny little bumps that she would have to sand down later… after she had a good lie-down and slept off whatever this strange thing was.

"Ow!" The girl cried out and stared at her hand in beweilderment when the door handle of her dorm gave her a small static shock. That had been unpleasant… it had _hurt_!

Something was thumping inside of her; she could feel it as she stumbled inside the dorm, a rhythmic beating that pounded against the inside of her chest and a faint whooshing sound could be heard in her ears, which was strange because she was made out of solid wood, and she would have noticed if a wood bug had tried to burrow into her body, _nothing_ should be moving inside of her!

Cedar's chest section began to convulse and it felt like something inside was burning but she couldn't call for help for some reason, and her vision was blackening, and her head felt cold and light, and as she collapsed to the floor her thoughts were leaving her and-

Automatically Cedar's body took over drawing much needed air into her newly formed lungs, as the girl lay unconscious she gasped her first breaths of air.

XXX

"It's not that I'm afraid of the Thorns or unappreciative of all that they've done for my family… it's just that I know that they're planning more permanent aspects of my future for me while I'm distracted with my kingdom's problems and if I survive all of this I'd like to be the one to have a say in what I want without having to worry about any other contracts that I've been tricked into making with them while I was distracted." Raven explained to the two elder men sitting across from her, they had moved her into an elegantly furnished drawing room and set her still-limp form down on an ornamental franc-mage style fainting couch.

"That's why I asked you to make it seem like you claiming me as your granddaughter was all your idea and why the Evil Fairy was so hostile to you when you surprised her with the news." Raven coughed apologetically. "Thank you for enduring that by the way."

"Oh no need to look so sorry, I sort of guessed by the way you practically leaped at the opportunity to come back here whenever you wanted and the way that the Evil Fairy was being frostier than usual that something was up." Milton assured awkwardly, and really it wasn't any trouble at all for him, after having to deal with the sting and the insecurities that plagued him after Clawstorm had reacted so negatively toward the news of him being her father, Raven's almost easy acceptance of the idea of him being her grandfather (which was nothing short of amazing, and the ancestors knew he was still in shock about the whole idea himself) was more of a relief than he had expected.

"With two such profitable kingdoms along with all of their territories that you are to inherit someday it is of little wonder that you are in such a predicament." Giles hummed to himself.

"Well that and I actually do like it here, contrary to popular belief." Raven pointed out. "Though I will admit that it will be a slight relief having a decent excuse as to why I will not loom little Thorn clan fairy-witchlings so early in life handy, apparently me not feeling that I am ready yet is not considered a good excuse."

Milton and Giles raise their brows.

"My new lodgings in Hathor Academy include a nursery in the floor plan and there is several competent family planning clinics in the city a few miles away from the academy." Raven explained. "Not exactly a subtle push on my in-law's part."

"…And because you now have rights to run off to one of the Grimm controlled areas of Ever After they can't bully you into becoming a parent at seventeen in exchange for your safety." Milton hummed to himself, trying to see himself as a great grandfather and having the sudden, overwhelming urge to faint at the idea.

Raven shook her head. "There's more to it than that." She said firmly. "…This… this is going to be awkward and it won't be as easy as either one of us likes due to our different views but I am serious about… maybe trying out this whole having a grandfather thing… or whatever you feel comfortable calling it… that is if you want to I mean." The witch gulped nervously.

"Ah, yes well… if you don't mind… I mean I would not be opposed to…" Milton fidgeted nervously.

"You two are definitely related." Giles sighed. "My brother is trying to express the fact that he'd love to be your granddad and have all the responsibilities that comes with the job description. Oh don't give me that look brother, you can't deny that you've tied yourself up in knots worrying about whether or not she'd want anything to do with you when she found out."

"I do want to have something to do with him." Raven assured making Milton nearly startle out of his chair. "As long as he wants something to do with me. It's going to be complicated what with everything that is happening but… maybe it can work out? Somehow?"

Milton hesitates. "Do you really not mind having me as a grandfather?" He asks, hoping that his hopeful tone did not show too much in his voice, because ever since the day he realized that what he had with Elenore was probably the only hope he ever had to having a stable happy relationship while he still kept his station as a Grimm, he just couldn't ever quite let go of what could have happened if he had just realized how good he had things at the time and that having someone like Elenore genuinely love him for himself and not his station was a blessing he should not have let go, and all those years spent wondering what having a family with her could have been like… he had always, _always_ wanted to bring back at least just a little spark of the happiness he had felt back when he was young and never felt more alive then when Elenore was close by.

And now he was a father and grandfather and he didn't want to have this chance to at least get to know his granddaughter… to help protect her and be there for her and do all the other things a good grandparent should be willing to do slip by him.

But what if it blew up in his face again? Him leaving the girl's grandmother, the terrible way he treated her mother, did he really have a chance to hope?

"I always sort of associated you to a grandparent sort of figure. And Giles is already practically like everybody's uncle at this school." Raven admitted slowly, as if she was trying to gauge his reaction (and that is when Milton remembers that the girl can read faces so she probably saw all the hope and nervousness he was feeling a mile off). "I'm confident that I can build on that until it'll be nothing but natural seeing you as my actual grandfather."

And that statement makes Milton relax almost by magic because maybe… just maybe there is a chance that this could work after all.

"I always regretted leaving your grandmother." Milton confesses because it has to be said. "The happiest years I've ever been in my life were when I was with her. It was a mistake me leaving her and if I had known about your mother… I would have done anything to be a good father, you have to believe that."

The witch gives him a wry smile. "I believe you." She assures.

A silence descends upon the three that is part nervous tension and part utter bewilderment.

"I have no clue where to start." Raven eventually states. "I'm not even sure if there will be time for me to ask some of the questions I have for you if Apple and Faybelle decide to come for me early."

"Only a half an hour of time left." Milton sighed to himself as he rubbed his chin. "Do you suppose that you will be allowed to come back anytime soon? I don't think that I've made very many allies with either the Queen of Hearts or the Evil Fairy today."

Raven bit her lip, thinking. "If I can't beg my way back here then we will just have to figure out another way of making you a necessity in my life." She states simply. "I'm listed as _Raven Bride of the Thorns_ in the academy school database and that is the same surname that I've listed to this latest product line deal I've signed with Daring Charming and the O' Hairs, fifty percent of the royalties from that deal goes to the Thorn clan and the other fifty percent goes to me… now I've been figuring regular amounts of my cut to be donated anonymously to several key non-profit organizations in my kingdom."

The girl gives Milton a pointed look. "These organizations are fronts for covert government operations that offer aid and Underground Railroad options for the average citizens being held hostage on their own lands across the border, the Thorn clan knows this little fact as well."

"Sounds serious." Milton stated leaning forward.

"Very, and since you are a concerned relative of mine, the Thorn clan can't object to you insisting upon becoming a co-benefactor on my end of the deal so that you can monitor whether or not someone tries to figure out who has been giving such large donations to these organizations. And as for the rest of the world I am no longer a student or a fairytale character so if I wanted to continue selling my product formulas to the O' Hair sisters…"Raven trailed off expectantly.

"I would need to get involved because they are my students and you are not and you are also involving Faybelle Thorn in this deal as well with your acquired surname and since she is also a student it is my job to ensure that all is well on that front also." Milton finished. "Sounds like we will have no choice but to arrange several meetings for the two of us to meet."

"Indeed." Raven nods in mock seriousness. "It is your job after all."

"And I'm free to show up just about anytime I'd like, since the bad guys seem to have forgotten my existence entirely." Giles volunteered. "Kline didn't mention me at all, he just started ranting on about my brother."

"Huh. That is true." Raven blinked in realization. "There are more than several dozen mentions of my grandfather in the intelligence we've gathered on the enemy, but absolutely nothing about Giles has been found thus far."

"Seriously?" Milton raised his brows at the news. "But he's my _brother_ , wouldn't he be considered a soft target?"

"Hey, I know how to defend myself!" Giles sniffed. "But seriously, there's _nothing_ that you've found on me?"

"I think that it's mentioned in one of the reports that I gave you that your father had him and a younger sibling… maybe…" Raven pointed her chin to Milton as she tried to remember.

"Er, no, not even that much, it just said that I was the grandson to one of the former headmasters." Milton recalled.

"I feel offended and overlooked." Giles muttered darkly. "I'm perfectly capable of being a tangible threat to those goons!"

"I think that they were more distracted by him and my grandmother's relationship." Raven piped up helpfully.

"Well I'll admit that was rather distracting, especially back then, a witch and a human being so openly romantic at Ever After was a big deal back in the day." Giles hummed.

"Yes but their plan had failed." Milton stated. "I never married into any of their families and like hex am I going to allow ex-new-guy anywhere near my school or my granddaughter! So why did they never try to use Giles as leverage?"

"They got pretty quiet when my mom went berserk." Raven sighed. "Like _really_ quiet, I'd be surprised if most of the underlings even remembered anything past the scary witch lady who was crazy enough to curse several worlds just to try to hunt them down."

"…So in other words… we're the plan that they've been forced to scrap?" Milton realizes.

"Maybe…" Raven twitches. "But it's still too early to tell what's going on with these nut-jobs."

"So you don't know what their future moves might be." Giles stated grimly.

"Actually we've got a very good idea of what they want to accomplish." Raven murmured to the ceiling darkly. "They want war, and lots of it from the recent political attempts at starting a war in the months leading up to my mother's hasty attempt to stop it all… it is pretty clear that whomever is pulling the strings on this is trying to start a domino effect throughout the kingdoms of Ever After, digging up old insecurities and race hatred in two large kingdoms and causing enough upset in other kingdoms for one thing to lead to another and then everyone will be up in arms."

"The Book of Legends." Milton gulped.

"Would have been essential in their plan after the two of you passed away and… _that man_ became Headmaster." Raven breathed out slowly, fidgeting with the new Book of Legends still held in her arms, it had stopped glowing while the Queen of Hearts had been yelling at her grandfather. "But then my mother came along and changed the game, and now here I am making things even more difficult, if the leaders to this… _thing_ is smart he'll have at least realized that Ever After High is the wrong place to try anything but we can't be too sure…"

"If your kingdom was one of the targets then where was the other?" Giles asked, because it was a very good question and he'd like to know where the spear throwing might start so that he could avoid finding himself stuck in the middle while he finally took that long awaited vacation, because catastrophic instances tended to happen on his vacation days (example A: Clawstorm going completely FUBAR on the worlds at large, it happened just when he was about to leave for a vacation).

And that's when Raven clammed up. "I'm pretty sure that my mother took care of it… and Apple will make sure it stays that way."

Before the issue could be pressed further the private intercom line buzzed.

The secretary sighed into the microphone. " ** _Sir Miss White and Miss Thorn-"_**

" ** _Mrs. Thorn."_** Faybelle could be heard correcting the woman.

There was a pause. "… ** _They've come for Miss Queen_** -"

" ** _Mrs. Raven Bride of the Thorns_**." Faybelle corrected again.

There was another pause and a cough that sounded suspiciously like a complaint about not being paid enough for this. "… ** _Shall I send them in sirs_**?" The secretary's voice came out a little strangled.

" ** _Because if not we can send ourselves in_**." Apple's voice piped up helpfully with false cheer. " ** _It's really no problem_**."

"They are going to drive me insane by the time the weekend is over." Raven groaned.

"I'll take the Book, you say goodbye to your granddaughter." Giles suggested as he retrieved said tome from the girl, Milton soon following to gather the girl up and carry her into his office.

"Stay safe." The man spoke, squeezing the girl a little closer as the worry leaked into his voice.

"The same to you." Raven pled. "I don't want any more tragedies to befall my family, no matter how long I've known that they were family."

"Let's try to meet sometime within the month." Milton proposed. "There is a lot to catch up on and we both sorely need to have a talk where we _both_ take each other seriously."

"Sounds good to me." Raven gave the man a brave smile before turning her attention to the squawk Apple makes when the princess sees that the witch is obviously not completely recovered by being hit by a magical book.

XXX

"That was Faybelle, she says that they've got Raven and that she's more or less all right for a person that nearly had a brain overload from a book being crammed into her head." Blondie announced holding up the hext that the fairy had sent to her.

"I hope she's doing better than me." Clawstorm sighed gingerly adjusting the sunglasses on her face. "I feel like I've been run over by a semi-truck."

"Semi… truck?" Blondie blinked in confusion.

"It's a mode of transportation in the dimension I got my degrees from." The witch explained.

"Degrees… as in you have more than one?" The reporter asked.

"Mad science, anatomy, magical summoning with a specialized view into golem creation, and finally as of last year fall semester I got a degree in diverse magics of the forbidden variety." Clawstorm listed out. "Let's just say that I had a lot of free time in mirror prison."

"I can see that." Blondie nodded dumbly. "By the way I need help on my math homework, are you free this weekend sometime?"

"Yeah sure thing." Clawstorm snickered. "Just for future reference you might want to ask that nice Tiffany girl for help with homework too if I'm not available, it is my understanding that she skipped up several grades when she got here."

"Who's this man in these photographs?" Blondie asked the question that had been itching at her for a while since the older woman had calmed down and promised not to run screaming into the afternoon just because the blonde had found out Mira's secret.

"Oh that's me in my male form." Clawstorm stated breezily.

"Male form?" Blondie felt her eyebrows rise up to her hairline.

"It happens sometimes in witches and warlocks, where we are born with something… extra in our genetic makeup I guess you could say, for instance I was born anatomically female and I stay female most of the time but hidden in my DNA were these bits of warlock characteristics, for my magic this was rather confusing for it, to be living in a body that looked female but only _felt_ half female so every so often it naturally does a gender-shift on my body so that things are… more balanced." Clawstorm hummed wondering if she was making any sense.

"So you're like a part time transgender person?" Blondie asked tilting her head to the side.

"I've never put a name to it but that is a close description to what it is… kind of. Except with transgender people they feel a strong sense of dysphoria with their own bodies for being born the wrong gender, I've never felt that, male or female I tend to feel at home with myself. I'm more like whatever a clam would call itself actually, because lots of species of clams can change their genders at will when it suits them or just for the hex of it." The woman scratched the side of her head. "Does that even remotely make sense?"

"It does actually." Blondie nodded. "You're you but with the luxury of being you in both genders."

"Precisely." Clawstorm nodded.

"So were you like Raven's second dad too?" Blondie asked because from the looks of the photographs Raven seemed just fine with a male version of her mother.

"Had to be sometimes." Clawstorm pursed her lips. "Raven's father is a fantastic man don't get me wrong, but since neither he nor I really loved each other enough to tie the knot or live together, and Raven was being raised with half human concepts she sometimes needed a mama to kiss her bumps and scrapes all better and a male version of her mama to bonk the shadow creatures upside the head and send them packing without supper."

"Raven used to believe that shadow creatures would get her?" Blondie asked. "I thought that for most kids raised in human homes had an aversion to the boogieman."

Clawstorm shrugged awkwardly. "Actually… for children born with magic… actual, _real_ spooks, like the shadow creatures, come out of the woodwork to scare the little tykes to the point where their magic jumps out to protect them, the shadow creature then proceeds to absorb the untrained magic and revel in the taste of the child's innocence that the kid is spilling out in their fear. And as a side note; most of the boogiemen that I've met are quite nice and the whole concept of hiding under strange children's beds kind of makes them feel a little bit too dirty so a good majority of them tend not to do that."

"You are not pulling my leg on this are you." Blondie realized as she paled considerably.

"I'm afraid not." Clawstorm shrugged again. "But if it's any consolation Ever After High is so full of protection spells that a shadow creature would be hard pressed to try to sneak in here, and since most of you guys are both non-magic-born and you are old enough to be the scary ones to the creatures and not the other way around, you see the taste of adolescence is too much for those guys so they steer far clear from teenagers and adults."

"…So that thing in the corner of my room as a child-?" Blondie asked faintly.

"Was probably just a harmless dark empty corner, shadow creatures do not find your kind to be particularly worth the effort." Clawstorm assured. "Humans have evolved to be weary of the dark and human children are particularly vulnerable to be plagued by the instinct to be suspicious of places that they can not see clearly, and tend to be sensitive to the psychic residue left over from… areas where something bad actually happened, it shows up in their dreams as night terrors."

"W-well male or female I'm sure that Raven appreciated you getting up so late to deal with those… things…" Blondie sure knew that she'd appreciate having a mother who bopped the scary things on the head and sent them packing if she were Raven.

"It wasn't much of an issue, I was busy studying for my first two degrees in mad science and golem making so late nights were common, and when Raven met her friend Maddie she learned how to take care of the shadows herself after a sleepover the two had together, apparently Wonderlandian children are not the kind of little ankle biters that tend to be cowed by dark things in the closet." Clawstorm chuckled at the memory of a big scary shadow squealing in fear and running right out the front door from a giggling little girl chasing after it in her brightly colored PJ's and little Raven following behind with a wide, impressed gaze.

Blondie was silent for a moment, things had been… really happy and bright for the woman before all this had started, that much was obvious… it made the girl feel melancholy and… angry that what sounded like such a strange but happy family were all torn apart just because somebody wanted to play war games.

"What do you plan on doing now?" The girl asked.

Clawstorm sighed. "Ever After High is filled with the children of leaders to dozens of kingdoms in the Ever After realm, I stay here, keep my ears to the ground, and hope beyond hope that nobody starts whispering about their parents declaring war on the Queen lands."

"And the Headmaster?" Blondie coughed. "If you don't mind me asking of course."

"Like I said before, he doesn't like me." Clawstorm shrugged. "He may be all wishy washy now because he knows that I'm his blood and all but… really it doesn't erase any of the bad blood that happened between us back when I was in school for me. …He treats my daughter with more respect and neutrality than he ever did me, and that is the single most reason why I never laid a finger on him while I was in mirror prison and he was going about his life like a sitting duck. And who knows, he might actually do a good job with this whole grand-pops thing but… I just can't trust him. For years he was so angry with me for being the child of his ex-lover and a reminder to everything decent that he had lost when he gave my mother up, and then he turns around, tells me that he is my father and that he cares about me? Cares about what is going on and that he is sorry for everything? I-I just… I don't know about that chief. I don't think that I can trust it ever."

"Because what if he had never found out about you being his kid and ended up not caring about all the bad stuff that you were protecting your family from and what if he's just being all nice to you because he wants to grasp onto the idea of a family that he had lost his chance at all those years ago?" Blondie filled in the unspoken blanks.

"Before… all the bad stuff happened…" Clawstorm waved her hand vaguely in the air. "A part of me wanted him and all of my old bullies to find out about my second career as Dr. Clawstorm Grimmbook, they all seemed to think that I was either nothing but a disappointment like the Headmaster was fond of calling me for a while, or that I was just another fuddy duddy witch to be made fun of because I wasn't human. I had thought that I would feel this sense of satisfaction at their confusion of the dreaded Clawstorm Queen doing something entirely non-evil and being really successful at it…"

"I'm sensing a "but" in here." Blondie sat down the photographs on the desk and plopped herself across from the witch.

"Chief… a while ago… an ally of mine overheard him say that he was… proud of me. Dreadfully confused as to the reasons why I went nutty on places like Wonderland… but he said that he suspected that someone… someone as smart as me had a good reason, and that he was proud to have such a smart, intelligent daughter, regardless of the whole cursing thing." Clawstorm sighed. "How do I know whether or not I should put myself out there to feel… anything good about that?"

"Keep your ear to the ground and keep an eye on him." Blondie shrugged. "You'll be here for a while I'll bet so maybe you might just get the answer that you're looking for."

The witch nodded. "Maybe I will."

XXX

"You guys barged in three hours early." Raven observed when the fairy and the princess had carried her back into Apple's dorm.

"Well since you were already packed we had nothing to do but to come after you, so we did." Faybelle stated as she set the witch onto her former bed.

"I found out why the Headmaster has been spying on me during class." Raven began conversationally.

"Did you now." Faybelle raised a brow. "Is it something that we should be concerned about?"

"Not really, as it turns out a few months ago he found out that he was my grandfather." Raven sighed up at the dark purple canopy above her.

"…What?" Apple strangled out after a stunned pause.

"Headmaster Grimm is my grandfather." Raven repeated. "He's the one my grandmother has been so hung up on for all these years."

" _Him_?" Faybelle burst out sounding appalled. "She fell for a guy who's… _that_?"

"Apparently." Raven pursed her lips. "Just as a heads up; he's called your mother and declared himself to her, he's planning on me coming back here, or him going over to Hathor Academy for several meetings with me under business guises for both our protections."

"And you fully plan on meeting up with him." Apple finished with a knowing look.

"That I do." Raven acknowledged.

"Dear spirits he actually managed to procreate! With an actual _woman_!" Faybelle continued to gag as she tried to scrub the mental images out of her eyes. " _Crap_ he's gonna be my in-law! The man who cursed and locked up his own _brother_ is going to be my _grandfather-in-law_! …Say Raven just how protective has he suddenly become now that he knows that you're pretty much his only living and viable blood heir? Is he demanding that you break off your marriage to me and becoming the next future Headmistress to the school or something equally ridiculous?" The fairy asked nervously.

"No, actually he was quite nice to me." Raven hummed. "I think that he was in shock that I didn't immediately start saying cruel things to him about how things ended between him and my grandmother mostly. Though he did have a chance to skim through that folder I left for him and… he got your card declaring our marriage and your new title…" The witch cast the fairy a dirty look. "He wants to talk about who I'm married to by the way, he sounded… _concerned_ for me."

Apple bit both of her lips into her mouth, her entire frame shaking in mirth.

"Yeah well I didn't know that he was your grandfather!" Faybelle defended. "I'm the _Evil Fairy Queen_ , part of the fun of being married to you is that I get to gloat about it to stuffy old fuddy duddys and make them all riled up and uncomfortable!"

"And make them point and say that Faybelle Thorn is the most evilest villain in Ever After because she seduced the dreaded daughter of the Evil Queen into giving up her title and becoming a fairy's bride." Raven deadpanned. "I know how this kind of stuff works, and I know that you'll be all too happy to brag about this big score of yours for years to come."

"Because that's how this kind of thing works!" Faybelle emphasized.

"That's right." Raven nodded. "But the dynamic changes when said stuffy old fuddy duddy is your wife's grandfather and it changes even more when as it turns out, much to my surprise, that he actually appears to… care! At least that's what I've been able to read off of him thus far."

"I'm not downplaying your observations skills sweetie, but the Headmaster has been… well he hasn't exactly been very supportive of your life choices. You said so yourself that he's got a tin ear when it comes to anybody's ideas but his own." Apple pointed out gently.

"I didn't say that I would be trusting him completely." Raven assured. "I'm just going to give him a little bit of trust and observe what he does with it. He could have tried to send me off to some heavily guarded far off place today ya know, not that it would have worked… but he still didn't. I think that he actually _listened_ to me and my reasons for doing what I've done… and maybe I should listen a little bit more to what he has to say too, I mean all the times that he and I have argued before he goes on about my family pride as if it were back in the old days and my family still had it's honor intact. And he always got this pathetically hopeful look on his face whenever I would do a minor act of villainy on occasion and in his presence, granted that was mostly to keep him off of my back…"

"You have way too much respect for the elderly." Faybelle complained.

"I can't help but feel sorry for the man." Raven shrugged. "He's practically desperate to get things back to normal, remember when he nearly got gored by that unicorn trying to prove that Ever After myths were true?"

"That's more than practically desperate, it's self-harmfully obsessed." Apple admonished. "Trust me I know the difference."

"…Ok, maybe I'm being a little too soft about this. But I still want to get to know him, and I really do think that he'll be useful to getting all the bad stuff to stop." Raven gave the two a pleading look.

Faybelle rolled her eyes and sighed dramatically. "Fine, we'll see if he can be at all useful or if he's telling the whole truth about him wanting to be your grandfather in more ways than just blood. But take the princess with you, Apple at least is still on his good side and all that time spent with Blondie should have instilled some basic recon skills."

"People rarely think to question my motivations for anything." Apple mused looking conflicted between insulted and interested. "I guess it's the whole fairest of them all assumption. It explains why my mother seems to have gotten away with so much."

Raven eyed the two in bewilderment, normally by now they'd be at each other's throats but at the moment it almost seemed as if… they were getting along.

The witch was suddenly overcome with a foreboding feeling and she wasn't too sure whether this was going to develop into a good thing or a bad thing…


	37. Chapter 37

A/n: I'm going to try for some lighter chapters for a bit before going back to drama and doom. Just a heads up there will be character development and lots of shenanigans, a quiet before the storm if you will.

I think that it would be interesting if they gave Daring in the show a little more character development (and if the rumors of him being the Beast are correct my hopes will soon come true and won't that be fun, fun, fun to watch him freak out), as it is he's… just… there, more of a village idiot than anything else as far as I can tell. I have this head cannon of him realizing that after the fairytale was over, and after his starring role was done… that he would no longer _be_ the star or the heartthrob of everybody's eyes.

He'd just be yet another king whose fame was secondary to his wife's (and as if his terrifying mother-in-law would let him steal the spotlight from her and her daughter), his children would be known to everybody as only Snow White's (Apple's) children, it is cannon in the series that Apple really holds no romantic interest in him and repeatedly mentions that the only way that she feels that she can get her kingdom and become queen is if she marries a prince (and we all know that lie of a romance can only last so long before somebody gets tired of keeping up the farce to the spouse, keeping up the farce to the common people is another story since they don't live in the palace, but inside the palace…?), with the way that the character of Snow White is portrayed so far in the show Daring will be pushed to the background in everything, and finally we all must remember that Daring is human, and that he will get old, and without anything else to help feed his narcissism or give him actual love…

Suffice to say I bet that if he did marry Apple his life would be turned into a living hell.

If I were him I'd start praying to become the Beast (I don't think that Rosabella would push to get married if they didn't really like each other).

XXX

"Mother…" A soft deep labored voice called out to the openly weeping woman kneeling at his bedside. Blue-grey magic flooded his arm, holding broken bones in place as he raised his arm and curled his fingers to lightly touch the woman's cheek, it hurt him to do so but it hurt him more to see the distraught expression on the woman's face.

"You managed to come back alive my son." A deeper voice came from the open doorway. "I must say that you have impressed me greatly. Clawstorm Queen is perhaps one of the most powerful witches of our time, and the lengths she has proven to be willing to go to protect her family and hunt down those who dared touch what she considers hers is beyond measure."

"F-father?" Kline started but hissed in pain when he moved his damaged ribs too much.

"Don't sound so surprised, after all it is only natural for a father to drop everything to greet his only son after a seven year absence." The deeper voice continued leaning heavily against the doorframe.

"I… apologize… I was unable to succeed in our plans." Kline sucked in a light breath.

"It is I who should be apologizing to you my son. I underestimated the sheer might of the power of both Clawstorm and Elenore Queen obviously if we are to succeed in our eventual plans we need to out-power them in order to completely annihilate them." The older man conceded. "I just may have found a way to do it, and now that you are here I have someone I can trust with our next long awaited step."

"Tomak my love I beg the not to send him out into any more danger!" The woman cried standing up from Kline's bedside to throw herself against the older warlock. "He is my only son! I do not think that I could bear it if anything more happened to him!"

"Peace, Joanna my pet, I have no intention of throwing our son to the wolves again. Our ticket to everything that we've dreamed of for our family is resting comfortably at the moment, and soon she will be strong enough to aid us in finishing what we had started so long ago." Tomak assured the woman as he held her slight frame close to his larger muscular one.

"Please do not leave me out father!" Kline pled as best he could through his shallow breathing. "I will heal! And I will be willing to do anything for my beloved sister Clementine! I swear it!"

"Hush my darling boy, please do not excite yourself in such a state." The younger man's mother begged.

"I assure you my son that your role will continue to be a crucial part in your sister's ascension to the throne." Tomak held up his hand to placate his distressed son.

"Brother's home?" Came a tiny voice from outside the doorway, a small blonde head popping in to survey the room.

"Oh Clementine, did we wake you? We were planning on telling you about your brother's return in the morning." The girl's mother told her child apologetically.

"Clemen…tine!" Kline labored out gritting hit teeth against the pain of the fragments of his broken bones sliding against each other as he reached his arm out. "My beloved sister."

"He's injured." The small girl gasped as she eyed the swollen and bruised skin beneath the man's bandages. "But you still look like my big brother… from the pictures." The child murmured uncertainly.

"It has been a long time since you have seen your brother in person." Tomak commented as he gently shooed the small child into the room.

"Clementine…" Kline smiled wistfully as the girl drew nearer to the bed. "You haven't changed a bit since I last saw you."

"I've been like this for a really long time. It's weird." The girl whined standing on her tiptoes and softly laying her head on the edge of her brother's pillow. "I'm tired of being short, and all of my old friends are all grown up and gone now."

"It's not weird at all." Kline cooed. "Forget them, you are perfect my darling sister, you who is so perfectly innocent and fair, everyone else is beneath you in comparison. You are the fairest of them all, and one day you will make the most perfect queen in all of Ever After."

XXX

Daring knew that he was probably in way over his head.

Okay he was definitely in way over his head. And these feelings were coming in super fast and… yeah he was toast and this was all probably going to lead into his first real major heartbreak…

For the first part of it all he was developing… some pretty intense… feelings for this one individual… which wouldn't be so bad except she was Raven's grandmother. Albeit a very _attractive_ , bewitchingly witchy grandmother who was still considered quite young by her race's standards, but still… she was Raven's _mother's_ mother.

But Elenore Queen was… positively radiant, and she was unlike any of the girls that he had dated in the past, for one thing she was a full grown woman so that was definitely different, but what also set her apart was… it was that she felt so real. None of the girls that he had dated had that quality of giving off that same authentic feeling, most of the time his dates were acting out the parts of their story character personalities or were just in it to say that they had dated the best Prince Charming on campus, none of them let their mask slip and showed their true inner person.

Something that Elenore had no troubles doing, as she had told him once when he had covertly asked her why she wasn't acting… well like an Evil Queen; she had shrugged and said that she was who she was and she didn't particularly feel the need to conform to a story character ideal since she wasn't her mother, or her mother, or her great aunt so-and-so, she was Elenore Queen, the descendant to a long and proud line of witches, why waste time trying to copy her predecessors when she could carve her own unique mark and become her own version of the Evil Queen. Not many of the Evil Queens of the past felt the need to adhere to stereotypes or copying other people's work anyway, individuality was just how things were done in her family.

Which made Raven's extreme aversion to trying to fit into the Royal's demands of how she should be acting make a whole lot more sense. Hex it made Raven's mother make lots more sense too, in a depressing sort of way because from the way that Apple used to swoon over her mother's tales ( _used to_ being the key words, _now_ the princess scowled and barked spitefully at anyone who complained about Raven looking less and less like a villain with each passing week) of how Raven's mom and Apple's mom used to get along… Daring was starting to suspect that Snow White was… not a fair maiden at all, and that Raven's mother was only acting the way she had in sheer self-defense. That thought made him feel guilty for even being human in the fist place.

When he had hesitantly brought the issue up with his family during one of their weekly get-togethers, as it had turned out, his siblings had arrived to the same conclusion he had and to everyone's shock their parents nodded their heads and confirmed their suspicions!

Human royalty have always baffled the story villain community, his mother had revealed with a shrug, since humans lived comparatively shorter lives the memories and lessons learned from the past tended to get diluted and twisted up until the same mistakes started happening all over again. Snow White and the maidens she had ran with in high school had clung onto their racism and had taken their character developing classes far too seriously, and left without the aide of the school faculty to protect her, Raven's mother had done the only thing she knew that would keep everybody far away, and that was to shove a poisoned apple into Snow White's hands when she had enough and to gracefully accept punishment if she just so happened to be caught.

Which had led to Dexter asking why Snow White kept poking the proverbial viper's den with a stick if she knew that she was only going to get poisoned.

To which their parents replied that Snow White had apparently started to _like_ getting poisoned and she _adored_ the attention and popularity she received whenever she could prove that she had been poisoned, making her look more and more like the most perfect helpless innocent maiden in school at the expense of Raven's mother seeming more and more evil to most, save for a few, humans at the school.

But Apple White did not appear to be as intense as her mother, their parents were quick to assure, and Raven was a fine young witch who obviously cared for both Daring and Apple, and that if there were any issues they would not push Daring or any of their children to marry someone they did not want to.

Which had led Daring to the second and third reason why he was so, so, _so_ toast.

He realized that he did **_not_** want to marry Apple, that even though everybody, including himself, was certain that he was definitely her prince since he was the most charming of the Prince Charming's in the school and she was-… _used to be_ , the most fairest and popular, and perfect maiden in the school then… it just had to be right?

But… there had to be more to a marriage and relationship than token niceties with him acting charming in her presence for the masses to see and her fake-swooning (and he could tell it was fake!) over him. He tried to think of a time when they had actually interacted like that without lots of other people being around to watch them, or even a time when they had just talked one on one without anybody around and without putting on this big show.

And then there was Raven, who did care about him, albeit in a strictly friendship capacity, but that was more than any other girl their age, and not related to him, had ever cared about him. Sure he was a dang fine pretty face but girls tended to want things from him in return for their attentions, Raven just tended to walk in and give him a hug hello without demanding or expecting any sort of date from him (which made Daring suspect that lesbians could make pretty awesome friends for straight men in the same way gay men were the favored friend for straight women), and she was fun to be around, she knew how to distract him from the mirrors and the memory of his form kissing a corpse by catching his interest with other things, such as food and the numerous witch customs that she had to study and practice on the side of her fairytale classes.

Which completed the overwhelming feeling of being thoroughly toast because he realized that aside from his siblings and Raven, Daring was not really close to anybody else… and now Raven had left Ever After just over an hour ago and Daring already missed her.

What was he going to do on the weekends now that Raven was gone, and his siblings had social lives of their own now? The usual spending the day in front of the mirror and going on a date were now out of the questions so-

Daring stopped in his tracks when someone stumbled onto the sidewalk in front of him and then proceeded to trip and fall flat onto their face.

"Cedar?" He asked the back of the familiar looking dress, quickly lifting the bewildered girl up to a standing position.

"D-Dar… ah!" She croaked and leaned against him heavily, the girl's hands flying to her neck as her torso expanded, as she drew a _breath_ , and Daring's eyes caught onto the sight of small drops of red falling onto the sidewalk from the girl's scraped knee.

That's when the gears in the boy's brain clicked to a conclusion.

"Cedar that's _skin_ covering your leg!" He exclaimed as he stared at the dark pigmented torn flesh, far darker in color than the wood that she had used to be made up of, surrounding the dripping red of her wound. "You're breathing and bleeding! You're-"

"Real." Cedar breathed weakly slumping fully against him as if she was having trouble controlling her limbs while she was too busy being overwhelmed by everything else that she was feeling.

Daring picked the sensory-taxed girl up and began running for the healer's offices.

XXX

"Mommy?" Duchess sniffled, collapsing to her knees in her now private dorm room. "Mommy you're… you're human!"

The woman on the screen of her phone couldn't seem to stop grinning and crying, which in turn caused Duchess to grin and laugh wetly through her tears of joy.

"Mommy you're back! I have my mommy back!" Duchess continued to cry as the two Swans exchanged near incomprehensible babble between birdcalls and human speech.

XXX

"Rather impressive the students Apple was able to draw around the school ready to burst into the Headmaster's chambers to rescue Raven." Ramona commented to the sunset.

"Freaking scary if you ask me." Cerise muttered.

"Apple did always have a knack for commanding a room." Briar mused. "Should we tell Raven that there is a strong possibility that the Headmaster is her grandfather? Blondie sure seemed to think he was."

"Let's hold off on that until we've got some actual evidence." Cerise decided. "It was only a brief mention during that post-fight verbal fight, and besides that; just how useful can that guy be to Raven?"

"I agree." Ramona nodded. "Remember how our mother used to rant about the way that he treated Raven's mom? How he drove the sisters to run away to a whole other dimension? And let's not forget that he cursed and locked up his own brother. How are you supposed to trust a guy like that after everything that he's done?"

"Apple told me that Raven never felt threatened by him the same way her mother was." Briar pointed out. "Apple said that Raven felt bad for the guy and constantly worried that he'd drive himself into a heart attack if he kept getting into those stress fits at the existence of the Rebel faction."

"…But we also need to remember that Raven was able to forgive _Apple_ , before Apple started questioning her story and becoming a lot nicer, every time she hurt her. And… just trust me, as one of the few people Raven went to for a shoulder to cry on… Apple had hurt her a lot." Cerise spoke quietly.

"I know she did." Briar admitted, looking down to the ground in shame because at the time she could see that Raven had been working so hard to keep peace between herself and Apple, trying to establish a steady equal ground between them, and Apple had been too obsessed with having a perfect happy ending to notice how much of a bully she had become to the witch… and Briar had done little to help the witch out in the beginning.

"I think that they're both better off now that certain truths have been revealed." Ramona continued lightly. "Raven doesn't have to worry about losing Apple's friendship and Apple seems to be slowly learning to stand on her own two feet in regards to her own life."

"But now the question is whether or not she'll get a chance with Raven now that Faybelle is keen on keeping our favorite witch, since Apple was the one to unintentionally drive the two together with her old antics." Briar snorted.

"Well…" Cerise began but her gaze was caught by something off to the side.

"…Is Cheery Smiles… _smiling_?" The hooded girl asked in confusion as she stared at the girl grinning at a butterfly that had landed on her arm. "I thought that she was unable to smile until after her destiny was finished…"

"I'm seeing it. I don't believe it but I'm definitely seeing it." Briar murmured in shock.

"Now _that_ is weird, even by our standards." Ramona rubbed her eyes as if what she was seeing was just a dream or a trick of the eye.

XXX

Milton's hands shook as he pressed his hands together resting his chin and mouth on them as he stared at the floor and breathed.

"She trusts me, just a little bit." The man swallowed almost disbelievingly. "Against all odds she's let me in."

"How does that make you feel?" Giles quirked up a brow inquisitively.

"I… I don't know." The other confesses sounding confused. "I had never counted on her taking the news so easily, I had assumed that there would have been a lot more apologizing on my part for past wrongs… come to think of it, _why_ is she trusting me? I haven't done anything yet to earn it."

"Because she's gambling on the assumption that you won't hurt her." Giles replied easily. "I'm far better at lurking discreetly in the hallways than you are brother, and she actually talks to me on occasion, I've heard her recount several instances where you could have tried to force her to become the Evil Queen or banish her against her will and yet you did not."

Milton rubbed his brow with his fingertips. "That child can argue a unicorn into giving up it's own horn, and she can read me like an open book. She never gave me an inch to even hope to convince or trick her into her destiny." The man chuckled weakly. "I was more concerned with what mess she could be capable of making with my pull over the other students if I overstepped and gave her legitimate reason to simply leave, her father sure threatened to take her out of school enough times and I knew that Clawstorm would turn me into a newt first chance she got if I did anything. I knew that I stood little chance of trying to control her that way, and I knew that Miss Queen was stubborn and knew all of her rights and would not be afraid to use them to their fullest potential."

The older man chuckled. "She reminds me of our mother in that respect, even praying to the Ancestors couldn't help our father when she had her mind made up about something, it was probably the reason why he stayed away from the manner so often or had her go on those errands to the nearest city for days at a time, a woman who could not only stand up for herself in a verbal match but was mean enough to knock her own husband down if he dared raise a hand to her? He was probably downright petrified of her by the time you were born."

"Did mum ever love our father?" Giles asked he had been a tiny little thing when their mother had passed so his memories of her were few and blurry.

"She loved him enough to stay and not spirit herself or us away in the middle of the night, and he knew better than to push his luck since… well since it is so difficult for those of the Grimm family to find someone willing to stay without manipulating political agendas upon the fairytale characters we are tasked to watch over." Milton admitted a little tentatively, still sensitive about telling his little brother about the harsh realities of arranged marriages and the complicated relationship surrounding their parents. "That is at least until the day that she had been taken from us."

"Father tried to throw her out." Giles murmured, a flicker of a memory awakening in his eyes.

"And she knocked him out cold with the heating iron, tied him up to the chicken coop, and took us both with her when she left the house." Milton nodded. "She had family in the Eternal Winterlands of the north that we were going to stay with. We had stopped the carriage for a rest over by one of the lochs on the border of one of the four kingdoms that the Queen family is currently having troubles with ironically enough. That's when she had spied the old woman running from the kelpie along the bank, and our mother being her usual self told us to wait by the carriage and proceeded to run towards the creature while throwing things at it."

"I remember an old lady and mum yelling and a lot of splashing water…" Giles furrowed his brow as he attempted to remember. "And a pearly white horse with long sharp teeth and kelp covering its entire body running towards us."

"The kelpie had a friend who had heard me screaming and you crying and had decided to venture a little further onto land to have us as it's meal… and that's when Elenore showed up." Milton looked to the ceiling and breathed a heavy sigh. "She had heard from her parents that we were moving away and that we'd be passing close by her kingdom's territory, she had known where the safest routes were to the north and had stolen her father's griffin and flew south and down along the road we were on in the hopes of catching us for a goodbye, and perhaps contact information so that she and us could still stay friends. She scared off the beast heading for us."

"I have… a vague recollection of you… hugging or… tackling her to the ground?" Giles questioned while scrunching his face up, trying to remember.

"She had tried to chase after the kelpie to get our mother back. I didn't want to lose her too so I stopped her." Milton admitted, remembering how Elenore had struggled to slip away, howling and cursing as he begged her to not risk herself to the hungry mouths of the kelpie in their home territory, begged her not to be taken from him too.

Elenore had always been as fierce as she was passionate, and loyal only to a select few, and more importantly she had meant just about everything to him in that one moment in time where he was sobbing into her middle and she had shakily pulled herself together to hold both him and his brother as they both cried and cried until they were able to be herded into the carriage and her father's trusty griffin had guided the horses safely into Queen territories.

Elenore had never hesitated in defending him or his brother when things got a little rough.

Milton sat back and wondered if chancing calling up Elenore and perhaps even running over to Hathor Academy would be a good or bad move on his part.

Giles stared at his brother in confusion, wondering why the older man was suddenly willing to finally talk about the tragedy that had transpired while they had been young, since the other had refused to even speak of the event before now.

XXX

"This whole limp body thing will wear off soon right? I barely had the chance to see what was out the carriage windows!" Raven complained as she tried to desperately look at her new living quarters while being arranged onto a large bed.

"It's raining buckets." Faybelle deadpanned as she nudged the witch to the center of the bed. "You didn't miss much, trust me."

"You're definitely more lively than before." Apple observed the witch's twitching limbs. "I'm sure that after our nap you'll be able to move more." The princess guessed before disappearing into a walk-in closet with their luggage.

"Faybelle." Apple called out a moment later, stepping out of the closet with both hands on her hips. "Why is there a baby cradle and changing table in that room?"

"Oh that must be the nursery detailed in the floor plan that the school had sent me." Raven hummed in recognition.

"A _what_?" Faybelle asked bewildered. "What nursery? Why would we need a nursery?"

"Are you saying that you had no idea about this?" Raven asked confused. "I would have figured since your mother had been the one to-"

" _Mom_." Faybelle hissed. "So back when she was worried about boys she threatened against unwanted pregnancies but when I acquire a profitable bride she's all for grand-larva witchling heirs?" The fairy growled grabbing her phone from her pocket and walking out of the room. "I'll be back soon." She called irritatedly over her shoulder.

"Well it's nice to know that we appear to be on the same page about waiting for children." Raven commented as sounds of laughter and embarrassed snarls filtered in from down the apartment stairs.

"The Thorn clan is real subtle about these sort of things." Apple snorted sarcastically.

"Tell me about it." Raven snickered. "But they've been nice and bearable thus far so I can't complain much."

"How are you feeling?" The princess asked.

"Partly exhausted from today's adventure and move and partly… stunned into a sort of disconnected state of mind in regards to… the whole "hey I'm your long lost grandfather" thing." The witch thumped her head lightly against the pillow beneath her head.

"Well it's not just something that you can expect to feel any instant feelings towards I suppose." Apple bit her lip. "I'm kind of creeped out by the notion to be honest… I mean… the Headmaster and the concept of him having children and grandchildren just doesn't compute. And I'm worried about how well we can trust him… with the way he had treated both your mother and grandmother…"

"He won't try to hurt me intentionally." Raven stated with knowing certainty. "He acts differently around me compared to the way that he has been described to have treated my mother. I get the distinct impression that the whole fantastic show of power via making it appear as though she was cursing all the worlds at once, kind of broke the Headmaster a little. I think that he became fond of the technique of attempting to be encouraging of villain values real quick when I refused my destiny."

"I'll bet he did." Apple rolled her eyes.

"But still… it's all a bit much for me, I… don't feel as though I'm able to properly freak out about this as I should be able to. I have more pressing matters to deal with and so the logical side of me is taking over, hoping beyond hope that maybe, _maybe_ he might be the key to getting all of this bad stuff to stop, and maybe… there will come a day when I can fully see him as family and not the Headmaster to Ever After High. I want to have my family and life back and… as much progress we have all made on this… I need more help, I need his and Giles's help, because I'm scared and I'm way too young for this and they seem to know it more than anybody else." Raven closed her eyes tightly and inhaled deeply.

"They know Ever After and it's ins and outs far better than I do, they know what to look for and how to be super discreet, and so that's what I'm going to trust them with; they will be my warning system, if something suspicious starts going down they can warn me and we can take the proper course of action. In the mean time I can focus on my studies and becoming more proficient with my magic and my herbalist skills so that I can get stronger."

"And have a chance to breathe." Apple piped up. "You are allowed to be worried but don't let it get to the point where you get too stressed out to give your nerves a rest or enjoy the little things in life, it's just not healthy. Remember Raven; you are not alone, you have lots of friends and allies who are looking out for you and your family, we won't let anything bad happen."

Raven mulled that over in her head for a moment.

"I'll try." The witch agreed reluctantly.

"Ugh _mom_!" Faybelle's voice floated up to the room.

"Speaking of pressing matters where is Faybelle going to sleep?" The princess blinked innocently.

" _Apple_." Raven warned.

"Kidding, kidding." Apple assured. "I know that she and I have to learn to get along if we both want to stay here on the weekends. It's going to be weird all things and rivalries for your affection considered, but… we'll try."

"You might want to start looking for someone that she can poison in substitution to you and curse in substitution to Briar, she'd owe you a favor if you did that for her." Raven revealed with a blush to basically a confirmation and reminder towards… something very complicated and involving two very strange potential romances. "That and she'd cheer up a bit more." Because Faybelle was reluctantly starting to like the anti-maiden vibe that both princesses were giving off, apparently it made them far more interesting and bearable to be around.

"I've… got some people in mind." Apple assured, in actuality she had the names of several certain enemy human lords in mind… along with… perhaps her own mother might want to be shopping to be poisoned again since technically the older woman was not Snow White since she had never been poisoned by an Evil Queen, just one Clawstorm Queen who had never signed the Book.

Apple wondered when it would be an appropriate time to inform her mother of this fact, if at all, certainly if the woman was going to put up a fuss about Apple not following destiny she'd blow a gasket if she ever knew that Apple was seriously starting to consider refusing to ascend to the throne altogether, a distraction would be welcome in that event.

"Parents and their biological clocks demanding grandchildren." Faybelle muttered darkly as she entered the room.

"Was that your mother's laughter we heard earlier?" Raven asked.

"Be grateful that you have a father who wants to forever see you as a tiny witchling." The fairy ordered slipping into the bed beside Raven. "Because having a parent who wants to become a grandmamma is just simply unbelievably irritating, and I'd stop snickering if I was you princess since my mother has just oh so kindly hinted that having a concubine from an influential human kingdom might benefit my marriage's love life!"

Apple nearly swallowed her tongue as she slipped into the bed as well beside Raven's free side.


	38. Chapter 38

"So people who have been in the "cursed until the fairytale is done" population of Ever After are now… getting un-cursed?" Mira asked incredulously as she soothingly ran her fingers over Cedar's hair.

"We've got confirmed reports from all over Ever After." Dexter reported as he flicked through his mirror-pad. "And Sparrow just hexted me about Duchess's mom finally being able to transform back into human form."

Blondie looked around the infirmary room containing her crew, Cedar, and Daring. "And both Apple and Raven are away at the moment. What should we do?"

She was met by confused shrugs and bewildered looks.

"Um… I'm still new here so… what does my lady and Miss Apple have anything to do with what we should do about this situation? I mean surely the teachers and the Grimm brothers would be fully capable to soothe any worried feathers and figure out what is going on right?" Mira piped up trying to sound both reassuring and confused at the same time.

"That was before Raven denied her destiny." Humphrey scratched the back of his head. "After that… things just tended to get so crazy at times that the teachers tended to get really stumped about what to do… because before all of this revolution stuff things tended to be…"

"Predictable." Mira supplied, thinking back to how people had reacted to the thought of Clawstorm, a future villain, being bullied by a bunch of maidens, and how most people tended to pretend not to see what had been happening because of the whole human notion of everybody having to fit in with their stereotypes.

Which had not been fair in Clawstorm's opinion because she had been the one to be reprimanded for not being scary enough and the maidens and Snowy freaking White, had never even been approached by the human faculty for their un-maidenly behavior, On occasion one of the non-human teachers would catch the girls off guard and lecture them about how they seemed to fit more into the evil villain ideal than most of the actual villains in the school but…

Mira released a breath and focused on not getting worked up over past wounds.

"So being the unofficial leaders to both factions means that it was up to my Lady and Miss Apple to sort out the issues that popped up with this new uncharted territory?" The witch asked peering at the others as they all nodded their heads in confirmation.

"Right." Mira stood up straight and put her hands on her hips. "So perhaps the question that we should all be asking right now is; what would my Lady and Miss Apple do to keep the school population calm while the faculty frantically try to figure out just what is transpiring around here?"

"Umm…" Daring furrowed his brows. "W-well in kingdom management classes we were taught the importance of keeping the masses as calm as possible in any situation so… tell them that there is nothing to be concerned about?"

"That's a good start." Mira praised. "But we also need to remember that people will have lots of questions and that they will need some kind of answer to tide them over and keep them calm until actual facts are discovered and a plan of action is reached."

"But… we don't know whether or not this is a safe or dangerous thing." Humphrey raised his hand timidly. "Not that your idea isn't a very good idea I mean… just by talking to you I feel safer already!" He quickly assured.

"It's fine, that is a very good thing to point out." Mira smiled kindly at the boy and suppressing a guilty wince at the obvious crush the other had on her (Blondie must have noticed too because she was giving Clawstorm a painfully sympathetic look right now). "So now what we have to do is use our common sense; thus far have there been any reports, or can you think of any fairytales where people's lives would be put into danger?"

"No." Cupid shook her head as she started to catch onto what the witch was trying to do. "The only real issue that people would have with this is the Royal side of the faction and whether or not they'd be able to go through with their destinies."

"Alright, so how should we go about soothing those fears?" Mira asked.

"Raven is always reminding us that we have a choice whether or not we follow our destinies." Dexter hummed in thought. "If we tell people that nothing has changed on that front then that should be enough to smooth down any ruffled nerves."

"Good. Now are there any other issues that you think that we should address?" Mira clapped her hands together and gave everyone a proud smile.

"Umm…" Cedar began uncertainly. "I'd like some help with figuring out how to work my new body please." She asked shyly.

"I bet you do." Mira cooed sympathetically. "You must be immensely overwhelmed at the moment. Prince Daring, are you free to look after her until someone gets ahold of her roommate?"

"It would be my honor." Daring dipped his head in acceptance.

"Great, that seems to be everything." Mira smiled to herself satisfied. "Now we just need to broadcast our news."

"We need to find someone who the public can trust to inform them of this news first." Blondie piped up looking at Mira keenly.

"The issue of the Royal vs. Rebel conflict is still a sore issue for most people so we can't pick just anybody to put their face onto the screen. Paranoia of the other faction trying to sabotage the other is still high… mostly due to individuals unnamed who tried to get Raven to win a certain villain contest a few months ago." Dexter explained exchanging looks with the rest of the room. "Aside from Apple and/or Raven there is only one person who the school population will trust without becoming worried about underhandedness."

Mira nodded because she had heard about that particular day where the Headmaster and Apple White had tried to force her daughter into participating in that contest and how her daughter and Faybelle Thorn had foiled their plan in a very public, very effective fashion, and she had practically felt the nervousness over people's split opinions about it.

"Whose this person that people will trust? Do you suppose that they'll allow for us to ask them for a favor?" The witch asked.

The rest of the room stared at her pointedly.

"…Please tell me that you all are not staring at me." Mira gulped nervously.

"You are the only neutral person at this school." Humphrey pled. "And you'd look so perfect on camera with your alluring confidence and your cool persona added onto your exotic beauty- er, that is to say from a totally professional standpoint..."

"Our staff polls show that the student body trusts you as an unofficial third party when it comes to the faction conflict. And more importantly you can see the benefits from both sides of this issue while still being completely neutral, it isn't everyday that we get a student with not only your non-conforming beliefs but also has a vague enough upbringing that you could be seen as either a Rebel or Royal or both by the average student." Cupid argued her point.

"Very assuring to the populace." Dexter nodded. "You are like the unofficial third-in-command to both Apple and Raven due to your beliefs and popularity."

"Popularity?" Mira scrunched up her face incredulously.

"The witchy sweetheart of Ever After High." Cupid smirked smugly in the face of the witch's embarrassment and disbelief. "What with your reporting stories covering issues like uncovering that unsanitary restaurant's illegal pollution dumping secrets to always making those little health charms that you donate to charities you've gained quite the little following."

"…Following?" Mira asked weakly, not quite sure how to compute such a thing. It felt a lot like whiplash to be honest, sure she knew that things had been easier this time around at the school but… to have people actually wanting to depend on her, trust her, treat her kindly… she just didn't want to completely trust it. She didn't think that she'd ever be able to completely trust it, not after all the hell and heartache she went through the first time around.

"I know that I'd feel safe and assured if someone like you were to tell me that I did not have to worry so much about this recent round of strangeness." Daring smiled charmingly as he batted his eyes innocently.

Mira looked to Cedar, who gave her a bright, hopeful look.

"I suppose that you're still into the whole "no lying" thing huh?" Mira grasped Cedar's hand gently.

"Yep." The girl nodded earnestly. "I trust you, and I know that other people can trust you too. It would make me feel lots better if I heard you make that announcement."

There was that word again; _trust_. When Clawstorm had been her age the word had a twisted and bitter meaning when it came to anything relating to this school, people trusted that the maidens were all inherently fair and right about everything, people trusted that she was a witch and born into a fairytale villain family and therefore she was to be mocked and belittled on principle.

And she had soon trusted that there were very few people that she could actually trust, and when everything in the world got shot to hell she trusted that turning into what would appear to be the very worst bad guy in history was her only option. Because she had begged help from the very same people that could have done something to stop it all before and… they had trusted the idea of maidens and her heritage stereotype over her own words and the blatant, ugly truth standing in front of them and threw her to the scrap heap.

And now people trusted her? Like she was a good thing, like she was an actual person and not a… and not a pile of trash to be thrown away when her use was done?

She just couldn't trust it, not completely.

However…

"I'm not sure whether I'm _that_ much liked." She chuckled embarrassed, running her fingers through the prone girl's soft and curly hair. "But if it makes just one individual like you feel safer for a witch to say such things then I'll be happy to make that broadcast and just see what happened later."

Cedar gave the witch such a brilliant smile that Mira didn't see how the others in the room flinched slightly at her words (Blondie who knew about Mira being Clawstorm only sighed pityingly); they had all sort of guessed that Mira had been exposed to some pretty bad racism towards her kind in the past with the way she always seemed so surprised that they'd want to include a witch like her in anything that wasn't evil related, and they all knew by now that Mira's aversion to standing in the spotlight and making reports herself was mostly due to her worry that people would take it the wrong way if a witch were to speak so openly.

They all had private talks in the past about it, and now they had all resolved themselves to helping the witch understand that she was in a safe place and she didn't have to constantly worry about someone shouting "witch" and gathering up a lynch mob.

"I feel much better already!" Cedar exclaimed.

Mira smiled warmly.

XXX

"It's good to be home." Kitty sighed happily as she snuggled close to Maddie, the two were in a large luxurious bed and room that they had been given while they stayed at the Hearts castle until they could find a place of their own.

"It's good to be in a place where we don't have to hide our engagement." Maddie giggled. "And for the moment we can enjoy it, Wonderland is free, we are together, and Raven is at her new school, far safer than she's ever been in a while."

"She may be safe but let's just see how long her sanity lasts with the fair one and the trickster fairy hanging around. Coupled with the usual trouble that resides in Ever After on a weekly basis. She did say that she had something unbelievable to tell us when we drop by later this week." Kitty reminded.

"Does it sometimes feel like Ever After makes Wonderland seem sane?" Maddie mused.

"More often than I'd like to think about." Kitty snorted, rolling over and burying the two beneath the covers.

XXX

Raven woke up to the sound of obnoxious snoring in one ear, sleepy muttering in her other ear, and two sets of hands that had wandered to groping territories.

It was almost as if her two companions were set on staking a claim even in their sleep.

However Raven soon found that she had regained the ability to sit up and delicately crawl away from her hands-y bedmates, standing and walking were two skills that she was a bit wobbly on but she had been able to sneak out of the room and down the stairs without waking up anybody.

The marriage-housing apartment was smaller than the dorm back at Ever After, but it was designed in a way that it was able to function as a fully functional two room (plus nursery space) and two bath small apartment with a living room and fully stocked kitchen (much to Raven's pleasant surprise) while making the whole area look larger than it actually was.

It was all kind of bare looking, Raven observed as she started cooking dinner, even with the sparse furniture that had to have been either included in the package or bought by someone in the Thorn clan, but Raven had her suspicions that it would not be long before both Faybelle and Apple were bickering over color schemes and wall art. Apple was better at that sort of thing than either Faybelle or she was, mostly because both witch and fairy didn't really care about how presentable their private living spaces were aside from the fact that they were clean, and Raven was kind of a practicing minimalist, mostly using what little she considered hers on a day to day basis and only wearing or using any of the Evil Queen regalia at the dorm in Ever After out of politeness, so Faybelle was probably going to be the one to pitch a fit about always buying matching colors to fit the schemes in each room.

And then there was the issue of the cradle and changing table…

Nevermore, when they moved the dragon in next week (she was staying with Ashlynn and Hunter for the weekend and with Apple for the week), was probably going to be the one to claim the nursery and those two objects as her own if Raven's odd luck continued it's natural course. It would be just like the dragon to become the unofficial love-child of the trio, the creature certainly already acted like it was a child sometimes according to Apple who enjoyed taking videos and pictures of the dragon to post on her my-chapter page.

Hunter and the rest of the Rebels were never going to let her live it down once pictures of Nevermore in a cradle started to pop up.

While plating their meals Raven suddenly realized that there was only one bathroom with a shower for all three of them to share (one on the main floor with the shower in it, the other in the master bedroom), the other one was just a sink and a toilet.

Living with Apple long enough to know that the princess adored spending an hour at least in the bathtub at the dorm and knowing Faybelle enjoyed having some time to unwind in the shower meant that was a definite problem area.

Raven did a quick search of the premises, knowing that there was a mailbox thing containing a bunch of maps and menus for the area somewhere, the witch hoped that there would be a bathhouse somewhere very close by because she had no desire to be the third party in the impending wars for the one shower.

Her quest was halted when the sound of murmured words came from the upper floor.

"Better go head off a fight before it starts." Raven sighed determined to get through the weekend with as minimal bloodshed as possible.

" _Why do you love her so much? What made you suddenly decide that you were going to fight me of all people to keep her_?" Faybelle's question made Raven still before she dared knock on the door.

" _I found out by accident actually_." Apple could be heard sighing. " _It was just after I had my… major melt down a few months ago, Briar had been ticked off and Ashlynn, I think, was starting to wonder if I was someone even worth the effort to be_ _friends with. They were wondering why I was so bent out of shape about Raven finding me a new villain, since all that I kept saying that I wanted was my fairytale it really shouldn't have been such an issue with me to have someone else do the part, in fact if it had been anybody else I would have been glad to have a different villain_."

" _But Raven isn't just anybody else to you_." Faybelle concluded.

" _No, she's not_." Apple agreed. " _Ashlynn and Briar… they did this thing, where they managed to trick me into voicing what I had been so unwilling to admit to myself for so long, that I had fallen in love with Raven… that I wanted her to be in my life for more than just a villain capacity. And that's when I started to realize how important she is to me, how even when I was freaking out about my story being a lie and my parents lying to me… being so horribly cruel and un-perfect towards other people to the point of hurting them… the only real thing that I wanted right then was Raven, because… she was more to me than just a villain to play fairytale with, she was my partner, the one I trusted and loved the most and the one I knew I could count on to try to make things better_!"

" _Only she wasn't there, she was with_ me." Faybelle emphasized.

" _Making a contract with you that would benefit both her_ and _me_." Apple corrected. " _She wanted a better villain for me, which I'll admit that you do fit the bill far better than she does, and she wanted peace and protection for her family and kingdom… and she wanted to protect herself from me_."

" _So you admit it_." Faybelle sounded intrigued.

" _That I was hurting her with my obsession to make her the perfect villain for me? Yes… yes I do admit it, I'll also admit that it is my fault that she didn't feel safe trusting me with anything and thus ended up turning to someone else, turning to you for help, and now I have to work all the harder not to lose her_." The princess sighed irritably.

"… _You do realize that I'm not giving her up either right_?" The fairy asked.

" _I'm well aware_." Apple grumbled dryly. " _As I am aware that Raven appears to be fond of us both,_ equally."

There was a silence after that, Raven looking guiltily down at the carpeted landing because that statement was altogether far too true.

" _I still need to poison somebody Apple_." Faybelle stated in warning.

" _Raven's mother never signed the Book, if my mother ever found out that more than two people knew about this fact she'd have kittens. I'll slip out your name with the most highest recommendations when that event transpires_." Apple promised sounding almost righteous in tone.

" _You're offering up your own mother_?" Faybelle sounded as incredulous as Raven felt.

" _A mother who so kindly lied to me, gave me a very disturbing complex towards being poisoned and viewing Raven like she was a god, was willing to knowingly throw me at an unhappily ever after, and had a hand in harming Raven's mother and their kingdom years after the fact_." The princess growled. " _It would be my utmost pleasure to hand her into your capable hands_."

"… _You know I never would have thought that I'd ever get to see you actively against fairytales before… or voice the desire to get drastic revenge_ …" Faybelle trailed off, uncertain.

" _My mother adores the idea of being poisoned by Raven's mother far too much, and she'll make my life unbearable if she feels like her damsel image will be taken away from her popularity poles_." Apple spat. " _Really I'd just be heading off some major trouble by sending you to her_."

"… _You have been acting very differently lately_." Faybelle observed.

" _That's because I've stopped acting_." Apple countered back. " _My whole life I've been expected to become this perfect ideal of something that doesn't exist, the only time that I've ever been myself, just Apple, to anyone is Raven who was somehow always able to bring out my non-maiden princess qualities when we were alone. I'm tired of acting like everything will be all right if I just sit back and act helpless, I'm tired of pretending that I know exactly who I am, and I'm tired of pretending that I'm not capable of anything without a prince around to tell me what to do_!"

" _That does sound rather exhausting_." Faybelle admitted.

" _Maidens aren't supposed to be smart or have un-pure needs_." Apple grumbled. " _I hate myself for being so blind to the point where I pushed Raven into somebody else's arms… when all along she could have been in my arms instead. And what's worse is that you're a decent spouse for her, you care for her and treat her so well, to the point where I can see her fall for you almost as far as she's fallen for me_!"

Raven blushed bright red, she hadn't known that she was so transparent about her feelings.

"… _We are going to have to work out a truce princess_." Faybelle decided. " _Raven deserves better than our constant bickering over her right now and it's no longer fun trying to make you cry now that you are acting like a sane person. We'd both end up losing her if we continued as we have been_."

" _You make it sound so easy_." Apple groaned. " _Not that I don't begrudgingly agree with you, but… well it's not like we can just share Raven, and it's not as if the tension between us will just go away, even with all of the stuff going on in the background_."

" _You are thinking about this on strictly human terms in the Ever After human traditional concept that there can only be one spouse for everyone. What you have to remember here princess is that you are dealing with a fairy and a witch_." Faybelle reminded with a snicker. " _Do you have any idea how many options there are just because of that fact_?"

" _I do know from my research that there are more different kinds of marriages and marriage agreements than there are different Charming families_." Apple admitted reluctantly. " _I know from a abstract standpoint that even the strangest of unions have been known to work for the right people but_ …"

" _It still mystifies you as to how relationships involving more than two people can work out_." Faybelle finished.

Silence was the fairy's answer.

" _Let's promise on a tentative contract level to just… stop trying to steal Raven away from the other, and for the both of us to work towards a mutually beneficial scenario where we defeat the morons causing so much trouble and reach a point where it doesn't harm either of us in whatever Raven chooses to do with us_." Faybelle proposed. " _As much as I'm supposed to encourage maiden's troubles with the world_ _at large, you are now my princess, and I am obligated to protect you just as much as I am to protect Raven who is my wife. It's just not beneficial to me in the end if we don't- and I can't believe that I of all people am saying this- learn to share_."

"… _That hurt you to say didn't it_."

" _You have no idea_." Faybelle groaned.

" _So what does that make me_?" Apple asked. " _Is there a term for this kind of relationship?"_

The fairy snickered. " _Oh yes indeedy princess, amongst both fairy and witch traditions you'd be considered my wife's concubine_." Faybelle cackled gleefully.

" _From what I've read that means that I get to satisfy her while your busy with other things right_?" Apple countered with a taunting lilt in her tone.

"Dinner's ready!" Raven knocked on the door frantically, blushing from head to toe. "And don't forget that we're meeting my grandmother and Faybelle's cousin first thing tomorrow so pick out what you want to wear to breakfast after dinner!"

Those two were going to drive her up the wall if left to their own devises, the witch predicted as she scurried down the stairs.

XXX

"The Book's cover has turned to a silver finish." Giles observed with an exhausted yawn. "But that and the strange occurrences around campus don't appear to be dangerous or life threatening so I feel as though we can afford getting a few hours of sleep tonight-." He glances over to the sun shining in the window, and then looks to the clock. "This afternoon… wow the time really flew by."

"I already had a decent nap while you were off at the healer's checking in on our student's conditions for those few hours earlier. I'm staying up for a while longer… there are some things that I need to look over first." The Headmaster informed distractedly.

"Suit yourself." Giles shrugged walking out.

Milton stared at the picture that he had acquired from Elenore's letter to her granddaughter concerning his identity.

He didn't like to admit that he was wrong; it came with territory of the same stubbornness that he had inherited from his father, but in this case Milton thought that it was necessary to sit down for a moment and take on the difficult task of admitting, if just to himself, the full spectrum to how wrong he had been.

It… frightened him that his granddaughter had not yelled at him, sure when her mother had cursed at him for being her father it had hurt but he was able to deal with it far better than such easy acceptance.

He was a bad man, he was ashamed to say, he had let his grief and anger overpower his moral judgment and because of that…

Clawstorm had been such a tiny thing the last time she had sat in the chair across his desk, bitter, defiant, and armed with the cynicism of a thirty-year-old, but still just a child. A child that had learned to distrust getting help from anybody and had turned herself into a criminal just to hope, even a little bit, that she could scare away all the bad people from those she loved the most.

She could have gone for his help, could have left her injured child in his care while something less damaging to her name could have been done to stop this all, he could have had the ability to stop this years ago. He could have treated her better, could have made her life easier by maybe looking into the reason why a villain of her family standing, and a girl as fearless as she, needed to ask for help against a group of maidens (he guessed that there was something going on behind his back at the time but it was too late now to know exactly what) and maybe he might have found some peace in taking the higher road with his hurting feelings, maybe even find a way to gather up the courage to tell Elenore that he was sorry for being such a social ladder climbing moron and that leaving her was the biggest mistake of his life… or at least not acting like such a pompous bastard about it.

He had hurt so much when he found out that she had found someone else, had produced a child from someone else, he wanted to slight her for moving on and acting as though she hadn't been proclaiming him as her boyfriend and making romantic gestures towards him since practically the day they had met as children, that she made moving on look so easy!

He regretted it. He got no satisfaction out of denying help to the little girl, or calling her a disgrace. In fact he began regretting his actions when she began actively avoiding getting within twenty feet of him, constantly poisoning a young Snow White with an apple (he really should have gotten suspicious when she declared it an act of self defense and that she had been having troubles getting the other girl to _stop_ outright demanding to be poisoned, especially since she had physical evidence and eye-witness accounts that she was telling the truth…), he had left her alone for the most part after that, knowing that he had screwed up but refusing to acknowledge it.

And then Wonderland happened, most of the former staff that had known about Clawstorm's struggles and his refusal to help her had all stood up and quit the next day, and everything had blown up in his face.

He had tried his best to treat Raven Queen fairly, and save for the coin incident, he didn't try to actively go after her for denying destiny, and apparently, beyond all reason, she had actually grown to respect him for it! Which had been slightly worrisome because that meant that she had expected him to act cruelly towards her.

It wasn't that he was complaining or anything but the concept had him utterly baffled.

Still he needed to talk to Elenore. It was the right, responsible thing to do, and this was far more important than any lingering feelings of hurt between them, this was all about the safety of their family! …Even though their family was as fractured as it was…

And even if they weren't related to him it was still his responsibility to protect them. He _wanted_ to protect them.

His daughter was the one he worried the most about at the moment; he had no idea where she was, if she was safe or…

His intelligent powerful daughter, who willingly dishonored her name and allowed herself to be imprisoned for seven years just so that the enemy would fear her wrath and ambiguity to the point of falling silent with their attacks. Never asking for help, never allowing anybody to share the blame, cloaking her true motives in lie after lie in an act of self-sacrifice.

Hell yes he was worried for her the most. How could he not be with those facts staring him in the face?

And he was a grandfather now; he had a chance to be a grandparent in some capacity, act as much like a father as he could given the circumstances (and the limitations in regard to the fact that his daughter seemed to be keen on not speaking to him), he just ached to make up for lost time!

So, _so_ much lost time…

And he couldn't be more proud of both witches, of their accomplishments, of their strong wills and faithful loyalties, the both of them had turned out to be extraordinary women in their own rights who were resiliently adapting the best that they could in the face of overwhelming odds against them. It may hurt to know that he had been cruelly denied the chance to raise them and watch them grow but they both had turned out exceptionally well, and he was keen to keep them alive so that they could continue to live exceptional lives.

He stood up, walking further into his chambers with purpose; he had wasted months of time fretting and worrying and he was getting tired of the constant foreboding feeling of not knowing what would happen if or when he did gather up the courage to come face to face with the mother of his child, the woman he loved so dearly for so long, and his betrayal to her ending up leaving him so broken inside that he had given up finding anybody else to love…

Milton shook his head dispelling those crippling self-sorry thoughts as he clicked closed his packed overnight bag.

Hathor Academy was several hours behind Ever After; it would be mid-morning by the time he reached the school.

He was taking a chance, he was probably going to return with some new heartbreak, and it was going to be incredibly awkward, but at least he was finally going to talk to Elenore and the two of them out of the love for their child and grandchild would come to some sort of plan of attack to protect them.

XXX

Elenore sighed contently as she wheeled herself back to the faculty housing, breathing in the fresh air damp with the smell of water and earth after a good rain. Breakfast at the small outdoor café had gone well and her granddaughter seemed happy, albeit hilariously exasperated by her two companions, Faybelle Thorn and Apple White, but both girls appeared to be dedicated towards Raven's happiness and wellbeing and that was all that really mattered.

And Milton finally told the girl that he was her grandfather (something that had the Thorn girls and little Apple all looked at her in disbelief about, much to Elenore's endless amusement), she hoped that particular issue ended well, though she had a feeling that Milton would be more tied up in knots about what to do than Raven would be.

It was going to be strange, having long-distance dual custody of their offspring, but since Milton had not even tried to contact her again after that discreet secret letter she highly doubted that he wanted to ever see her-

"Elenore?" A bewildered voice caused the witch to halt in her path.

His hair was completely grey now, face and hands weathered with age, and his shocked expression was slightly in shadow due to the wide brim of his hat but there was no mistaking the identity of the man who had called out her name.

"Milton?" Elenore blinked completely thrown for a loop.


	39. Chapter 39

A/n: writing about Elenore and the Headmaster is kind of more difficult than I had first thought it would be, it's kind of difficult writing about old people being romantic and it doesn't help that the cannon character of the Headmaster from the series doesn't really give me much to go on character wise so I'm having to look up old Victorian love poetry and redesign and add onto the Headmaster character in this fic in order to get an individual that I can write about.

It also doesn't help that the animated version of the guy is… kind of the manifestation of a clichéd angry old guy/villain found in lots of children's TV shows and who I generally tended to silently hope would get killed off in cannon when I watched these kind of things as a child. But I don't want to kill him off in this story (maybe) and I want to succeed in the challenge in making this guy… a little bit more likable (because the whole thing about the principal/teacher being the evil doer in everything got old real fast for me years ago).

And also I really think that the dude needs a girlfriend, and not some bitty old lady extra, I mean someone who is like Elenore, and isn't afraid to tell him that he's acting like a moron or a child when he gets into one of his tantrums. _That_ I'd pay to see.

XXX

She had a few, small slivers of grey strands of hair intermixed with the deep black body and blood red highlights (unusual for a witch of her age but considering the stress she must be under…), and she was confined to a wheelchair but aside from that Elenore looked exactly the same as she had the last time he had laid eyes on her.

"You came?" Elenore asked her eyes wide and disbelieving.

"Better several decades late than never." Milton shrugged self-consciously.

The witch looked around her worriedly. "It's not safe, if they knew you were here-"

"That contract made on my head if you were ever to come near me again was made back when they had hoped to trick me into marrying one of their own, or get one of their own to become the new Headmaster of the school. Both of their plans failed and I'm fairly confident that Ever After High has been scrapped from their future plans." Milton cut her off, trying to calm the rising terror showing on the woman's face. "And aside from that there are two very important someone's that I need to discuss with you."

"I never wanted to keep Clawstorm a secret from you Milton." Elenore told him truthfully. "And I never felt any vicious satisfaction over it, I always wanted to tell you the truth, but the threats…"

"I know that you kept quiet to protect me." Milton assured quietly. "And I know that you never wanted to hurt me, which was far better than the treatment that I had foolishly extended to you and our daughter. I regret those actions more than anything else in the world."

Elenore bit her bottom lip and inhaled deeply. "You are here because you are worried about Clawstorm and Raven."

"And you too." Milton swore. "You are all in danger, and a lot of it, much to my horror and shame, is my fault in certain ways. I want to help you get all of this to stop, so that you all can have safe futures to do as you please… I know that I'm probably the last person you want to talk to but… please, tell me what is going on, tell me what I can do, just… please don't send me away. I do care about what happens to those girls and… I want to take responsibility for them, and whether you despise me or not for what I've done in the past… rest assured I'll do whatever it takes to be as good of a father, grandfather… and whatever nice label you can come up for… whatever we may turn out to be, as I can."

Elenore was silent for a moment, considering the man's words.

"Okay." She spoke at last, sounding a little hoarse. "Let's give this a try."

XXX

"Your grandmother is a gorgeous, smart, well humored and open minded witch." Apple observed as they walked slowly down the stone cobbled road.

"So how did someone like her end up with the Headmaster?" Faybelle gagged.

"He was a lot younger then." Raven rolled her eyes. "And besides that I try not to concern myself with her preferences in men, she is my grandmother after all and thinking about her with anybody in a romantic capacity… I just try to distance my mind from the concept as much as possible really." The witch scrunches up her face in vague disgust. "Mostly I only compute her love life in abstract values."

"Well trust someone who can't help but think about in in very realism terms; it's kinda disturbing, I mean even by human old guy standards your grandfather is… not exactly the most attractive man in the world…" Charlotte winced.

"And he's not the most trustworthy or really worth being so heartbroken over." Apple sniffed darkly.

"But he still managed to hold her interest long enough to create my mother and he does seem to want to at least try to be a grandfather." Raven reminded them all gently. "That's more than what a lot of people can say about their estranged relatives."

"As long as he doesn't act unprofessionally over me stealing your title and making you my bride." Faybelle huffed. "I'm not going to stop being the Evil Fairy Queen just because he's my in-law."

"Ooh look it's that bathhouse I was checking out on that map earlier." Raven pointed out, trying to change the subject to less controversial matters.

"Yeah pretty much everybody makes use of those around the family areas of the campus." Charlotte nodded. "The small family housing units don't always come with full bathing areas and the bathhouse is a lot cheaper on the monthly water bill rather than a unit with a full bath."

"They have these sorts of places in my maternal home kingdom." Raven recalled. "The ones back home are intersex though, is it the same here?"

"Pretty much." Charlotte nodded. "Though the ones in the residential areas like this one do come with female only pools and private pools, but you have to book the private ones in advance."

"Intersex…?" Apple asked looking worried.

"Oh that's right they don't do that sort of thing in Ever After." Raven realized. "Well… you see Apple- lessee how do I explain this?"

"We generally don't care about nudity nearly as much as your culture does." Faybelle stated bluntly. "There are varying degrees of comfort levels from individual to individual in regards to who they may see naked, but for the most part as long as no one is being a creep no one cares about the whole gender thing when it comes to bathing in a giant public bathing pool."

"So you've both seen boys… naked before?" The princess's brows shot up and her eyes widened at the concept.

"In a strictly platonic fashion, yes." Charolette shrugged as her cousin and Raven both nodded in confirmation.

"Wait…" Apple scrunched her face up as a strange thought hit her. "So… does this apply to whole families too? Like fathers, brothers… cousins…?"

"Yes." Charlotte and Faybelle spoke as one.

"Not in my case." Raven coughed. "On my maternal strictly witchy side of the family I've been conditioned not to worry about it much, especially since many political deals and meetings with the lords from our non-human neighbors and territories feel safer doing business in pools where everyone is naked and without any surprise weapons hidden on their bodies. However, with my human side of the family… things are incredibly different, I'd feel highly uncomfortable if I had to conduct business or take a bath if a male human relative was in the same room, it's just how I was raised."

Apple deflated in immediate relief.

"…We don't want to know what just crossed your mind, do we." Faybelle deadpanned.

"It was just a stray thought, I'd rather forget about it." Apple shook her head. "At any rate… given that there is one tiny shower back at Raven's place this bathhouse thing sounds pretty attractive… aside from having to be naked near the boys part."

"I have enough spending allowance to put us in a private bath." Raven informs as she reads the sign outside the building displaying all the options and services next to the price. "Apple would be more comfortable in a private one since Ever After's general concept to what is defined as female is completely different from ours since Ever After human immigrant run bathhouses in my kingdom seem to struggle with seeing those born in between genders, transvestites, and transgender customers as female."

"Trans-what-now?" The princess blinked in confusion.

"Raven." Faybelle's tone was slightly higher than normal.

"I know." The witch sighed irritably. "I haven't taught her those concepts yet, but in my defense I never thought that she'd be put in a situation where she'd need to learn what those phrases meant! Ever After High is extremely cis-gendered and according to my mother so is the royal family, they next to never get to interact with people who are so open about such things, like with how our culture is so open about such things."

"…Is this another concept about witch culture that my parents have lied to me about?" The princess asked suspiciously.

"It's more likely that they are just blind to it, or they pretend that such people don't exist." Faybelle waved her hand vaguely. "You know how some people can get really weirded out by things that are different."

"Yeah." Apple nodded crossing her arms and looking guiltily away. "So… are these individuals like Raven's mom? They can change genders at will?"

"It's a little bit more complicated than that…" Charlotte scratched her neck. "Let's head over to my dorm building and I can grab you some old text books of mine, that should help you understand things better, and while we're there Faybelle can give me back my shoes that she borrowed and is wearing right now."

"And how do you expect me to walk back without something to cover my feet?" Faybelle teased, her lips pursed in a mock-pout.

"Why have wings if you refuse to use them?" Charlotte mock-sneered a grin soon forming on her darkly tanned face.

XXX

"It's going to be pretty quiet around here now that Raven and the Wonderlandians are gone and Apple is spending her weekends with her." Hunter commented with a sigh. "Everybody who isn't in the know is freaking out about how that'll effect the faction struggle."

"Little do they know." Ashlynn shook her head, adjusting Nevermore's tail to curl around her shoulders and not her face so that she could eat her cake.

"Seems kind of frivolous in comparison doesn't it?" Hunter mused to the sky.

"Let's not forget the fact that many of the Royal faction's leaders are…" Ashlynn looks around the public restaurant while she makes a vague gesture with her hand. "You know…"

"Uh hmm." Hunter nodded, knowing that Daring at least was not going to be come a Prince Charming as long as he could help it. "At least Sparrow and Dexter are being given some reprieve, their first date is today and everyone is too busy freaking out over Raven leaving to have spotted them acting all cute towards one another."

"Oh that's wonderful for them." Ashlynn gushed. "Though I can understand why they would want to keep hush on it for now."

"Yeah, between the shock it would cause the school and Daring's overprotective streak I don't blame them." Hunter snorted in amusement, now that Daring wasn't so full of himself anymore he was acting even more devoted to his siblings than ever.

"And Cupid." Ashlynn reminded.

"Ooh yeah." Hunter winced casting a glance over his shoulder to where said girl was sighing dreamily at her laptop, he could just barely see the picture of Dexter on her screen and the pink heart she was digitally drawing around his face while also coloring over Daring's form.

"Is that a normal thing for girls to do?" Hunter furrowed his brows.

"It's generally believed to be normal." Ashlynn murmured, also staring at the computer screen. "But the same does not apply to boys though, unless they are already in a committed relationship with the person they are drawing hearts around."

"And pasting her face over Daring's in that photograph?" Hunter asked.

"…That is a little worrying." Ashlynn coughed. "Looks like there is a need for some girlfriend intervention later. I'll ask Mira and Blondie for some help."

"Well I hope that Sparrow and Dexter work out, sometimes it feels like we're the only ones in a steady, healthy relationship, I caught some freshmen referring to us as the new mom and dad couple now that Raven is gone and apple will be spending most of her time with her over the weekends and breaks."

"I am too young to be their mother figure." Ashlynn stated plainly. "I'm fine with baby animals seeing us that way but people? It's a bit much- Nevermore stop trying to steal Hopper's food."

"Prrrp! Peep?" Nevermore cooed as she strained in her harness and made grabby paws towards the boy's table (Hopper was too busy squealing to himself at the sight of the cute dragon to notice that she was staring at his sandwich with thieving intent).

"I think that we are just fine just babysitting for now, no need to rush on acquiring adopted children yet." Hunter chuckled.

"I agree." Ashlynn smiled. "We're just fine as we are, so let's just enjoy it while we can."

XXX

"I almost feel like a witchling again." Elenore sighed into the silence of the room, talking had been more difficult than expected for the both of them, one would start speaking but soon changed their minds and settled for blinking at the other owlishly. "It's been so long since I've been near someone who knew me as a child, who was a child as well and grew up with me… people only treat me like an elder and mother now, some are even terrified of my power, the curse I have placed upon myself certainly does nothing to mask the output I'm channeling to my kingdom."

"Thus the reason why you are in a wheelchair." Milton gestured to mentioned object. "Must be tiring for you."

"I've built up a tolerance over the years." Elenore waved off his concern.

"This is very surreal." Milton looked down. "Seeing you… it's as if everything between us happened yesterday, except I was the one to age and you… look just as lovely as you always have been."

"We are both old now Milton." Elenore chuckled sadly. "It's been ages since I've felt young at the very least."

"You were always good at taking care of everyone when something bad happened. I imagine that having to raise a witchling and a kingdom all by yourself was very difficult… I am sorry about what happened to your parents… I was informed of their murders."

"Being a queen to a kingdom means that I never had to worry about finding a sitter while I was at work and Lady Good King was willing to help me out as a friend, it wasn't easy to inherit so soon but I think that I did my mother and father proud. Nothing blew up at the very least." The witch joked good-naturedly.

"If you had told me… even years later, I would have done anything…" Milton swore, trying to speak over the lump growing in his throat. Ancestors he was acting like an awkward teenager who had done something bad and felt twice as young and inexperienced as he had back then.

"I know that you would have, especially if you knew about Clawstorm being our daughter. Which was why I had to remove myself from your life completely and move on with my life, if I did not… I just could not lose either you or Giles like I had lost my parents, enough bloodshed had been spilt already I could not handle any more." Elenore shook her head in grim admission.

"I regret the way I had treated your daughter." Milton mumbled ashamed. "Two of my students had runaway the year before and were presumed dead and… I had just realized that since I would never find anybody who loved me as well as you did… I would have to search for someone who could take my and Giles's place when the time came, and then Lady Evil fairy came into my office one day with her student, your daughter, in tow, asking me for help in reprimanding some maidens who were acting very un-maiden-like and I was just reminded of what a pitiful man I had become and… took it out on her. I was too stubborn to admit that I had gone too far even after I had cooled down long enough to realize that I had just yelled at a child for asking for help."

"I was set on having her come home one weekend and never giving her back to Ever After high." Elenore revealed her tone borderline exasperated. "But my daughter declined my assistance, she said that after Legacy Day and after the fist few times that she poisoned the young Snow White, you, and all the other maidens, save for Snow White, were basically leaving her alone, making school bearable for her again."

"Snow White had been apart of that group?" Milton blinked in surprise. "I had just thought that the only issue was that she was starting to demand that she be poisoned."

"In accordance to family honor Clawstorm was set on leaving Snow White out of it so long as the girl did not prove too troublesome. I'm afraid that, like many popular human rulers, the promise of fame she got from being the victim simply got to her head. And there has always been a certain level of racism at Ever After High despite it being one of the most culturally diverse in this world, children are told by their parents of the big, scary non-humans and when the students see anything that doesn't fit in with what they had been told about the villain descendants they don't take it at all well. You remember how shocked everyone was when it was revealed that I was friends with you and your brother, and they were all just beside themselves when it was revealed that you and I were more than that."

"It was a good thing that I wasn't popular like the Charming boys were or else there would have been a real problem." Milton huffed. "But I was too in love to care about what they thought. How did I lose sight of that?" He wondered, because even with the scandal their relationship had caused it paled in comparison to how he felt knowing that he was loved so much by one of the prettiest and smartest girls he'd ever met.

"Why did you try to keep my daughter at the school when I tried to have her transferred?" Elenore asked, the question had bothered her for years. "If it hurt you so much to see her then why didn't you let her go? Why did you fight so much to keep her there?"

Milton winced. "You had moved on so easily, and I had not. It hurt to think that you had forgotten about me, I had wanted you to know that I was still there… and I wanted to hurt you a little bit because… you didn't really seem to care about sending your daughter to your ex-lover's school. And I got frustrated that you never reacted, that you never even called to yell at me!"

"So that was why." Elenore narrowed her eyes at him. "You only half succeeded there, I _was_ hurt at your behavior, but with the way that you had acted I was beginning to fear that my kingdom's enemies had gotten to you, that you were targeting my daughter like you were because she was a _witch_. I only tried to pull her out because I feared for her safety."

"That was not the case!" Milton hastily assured, waving his hands around in a peaceful gesture. He knew how much witches overall were still terrified that their human neighbors would turn on them, of the old cautionary tales warning witches off of getting too attached to human friends or else suffer the consequences of being betrayed and strapped to a burning stake. It was such a serious ingrained fear that not even a witch's sensitive instinct was willing to determine whether a human was safe to be around or not. He felt no offence for the woman's past concerns, there was just too much violent history between their races, and Milton had betrayed her once…

"If I had known that you were just throwing a tantrum over complicated emotions and a lack of an heir of your own I would have simply just told Clawstorm that you were her father and had her deal with you." Elenore sniffed indignantly her pupils glowing from the morning light bouncing off of them from the window as she looked down her nose at him.

Milton blinked in confusion.

"The threat was that I could never go near you, the same did not apply to our daughter." Elenore clarified in a tone that was like talking kindly to an invalid. "If I had known that you still cared about me enough to throw such a fit then I could trust you with her, trust you with everything. I was working under the assumption that you didn't care about me, and our past together, as well as the thought that you had turned witch hater one me."

"Sorry." Milton winced. "I really, really am. You have no idea how horrible it had been the day I realized that all of those girls that lords kept throwing my way all did not really want to marry me for me, they just… wanted an in with the fairytales. It was painful when I realized I was just being used and it made my longing for you even worse, not that the whole human propriety and courtship rules made things any easier…"

"Yes well I'm sure that was very restricting and cruel but at the very least those young ladies had gotten a taste of what a passionate suitor was like. I mean you never held back with me once we had managed to find time to be alone back in the good old days." Elenore snorted shaking her head. "Ugh. I am so glad many of the human kingdoms finally had feminist revolutions in royalty circles in the past two decades, I can't believe some of the incompetent old geezers or boring morons that parents had been willing to marry their daughters off to! I felt far too sorry for those girls back then… even if they were flocking over you at the time…"

Milton hid his blushing face in his hand. "It never got that far…" He strangled out, after years of absence he was completely unused to the woman's blunt and unashamed attitude. "I said I was going by _human_ courtship etiquette, as in Ever After human rules of courtship."

"But those rules are broken all the time." Elenore raised a brow. "Half of my ancestors wouldn't have come to be if humans had stayed so prudishly resolved."

"I was trying to be a good future lord! And I didn't feel right being that close to somebody who didn't have a clue in what to do, they all got meek and terrified when they suggested getting closer, and I was especially set against it when it was later revealed that they had been playing up their fear to seem more attractive!" Milton shook his head at a complete loss. "And like I said before, most of them were really not attracted to me, like at all!"

"So there hasn't been anybody who you've…?" Elenore trailed off.

"Not since you." Milton sighed.

"Well that doesn't sound very healthy." The woman commented.

"Some people would find that romantic you know." Milton huffed.

"Are these the same people who find shaking and scared virgins attractive?" The witch asked tilting her head to the side.

Milton rolled his eyes. "Yes, I'll admit that I know that human behavior tends to be immensely irrational and counterintuitive."

"Not all humans." Elenore gave a small, amused smile. "Though certain humans in Ever After do seem to be particularly perplexing…"

"I missed you." Milton admitted. "Good friends are difficult to come by, and loving, faithful lovers even more so."

"I missed you too." Elenore sighed heavily. "Things had been lovely back before we had to grow up."

"Grown up or not we would have been fantastic together if the stars had been kinder." Milton predicted wistfully.

"Oh you think so do you?" Elenore quirked up a brow and leaned forward.

"I'm positive of it." Milton swore. "What we once had… what I had thrown away, it was special. I haven't ever been able to find anything close to it ever since."

That threw the witch slightly.

"I guess I've never realized just how badly it really impacted everything." Elenore murmured. "Them going so close as to hit me in my personal life… I had always assumed… that you had outgrown me, I never would have thought that… you still had feelings-"

"I did, I still do." Milton promised, the man leaving his seat in favor of kneeling down in front of the woman. "It's been years but I still haven't lost my respect or my affection for you, despite what past actions done out of jealously may suggest…"

"So much lost time…" Elenore mourned.

Both shivered as if chilled even though the room itself was rather warm.

"What do we do now?" Milton wondered as he took the witch's hands in his own, relaxing by fractions when she willingly grasped his hands back.

"I am unsure…" Elenore confessed looking lost. "It's not as if anything is at all simple or clear cut, it never was, and I have grown dreadfully tired of dealing with the jumbled mess of feelings that have stubbornly refused to sort themselves out even as time marched on. It's not healthy, I think, that part of me still feels like we are young again, and all the bad stuff that happened between us never transpired, I'd say the death threats upon your life and my denied right to shove fatherhood responsibility in your face has certainly done a number on any sense of closure I am entitled to." The witch grumbled out irritably. "And from the way you just sighed wistfully, as if you understood everything I just said, tells me that you're in need of closure from the past too."

"We both still have feelings for each other." Milton mumbled out nervously. "It's only to be expected that we had trouble moving on from all the things we left unsaid or finding closure."

"Yes but how do we know whether our feelings are genuine or just figments of memories from better times?" The witch shook her head as if pained. "It's not like we can test it out without potentially causing one, the other, or both of us potential harm. We have a granddaughter who has married herself off to one of the Thorn clan, of all the families she could have chosen it just had to be the most scheming and territorial out of the bunch, a daughter who is determined to do things her own way and is gods only know where, probably getting herself blown up as we speak, and finally we have the enemy whose being particularly difficult to smother out of existence! There is just too much at stake to just figure out what is going on with our emotions towards each other!"

Milton's brows furrowed. "Test it?" He asked feeling like they were on the cusp of something but not quite certain of what that something was.

"To figure out whether we are just mourning lost opportunities or whether we are still carrying tiny torches for the other." Elenore clarified. "But like I said, we could very well end up hurting each other in the end so it's not worth it… I just got to see you again and so much has been cleared up… I don't want to end this reunited meeting in a fight or in another round of broken hearts."

"But if we do not figure it out, won't we be guaranteeing those same outcomes?" Milton asked. "I may have been a fool in the past when it came to love but for this relationship to work out to our benefit… don't we need to know where we stand with the other? To know the other's emotions and take as much care not to hurt them as possible and work to forge a new level of trust through honesty? Even if it never again grows to romance?"

"…I'll admit that you do make a good point…" The woman looked at the man oddly.

"Years of being a pining fool have done much to help me address my own emotions." Milton shrugged.

"It was the fact that you sounded like a marriage councilor for a moment that really threw me off." The woman pointed out.

"I have also added lots of relationship advice books to my personal library, and I run a high school filled with students who more often than not fall in love with those outside of their fairytales, until our granddaughter's revolution, some good, brief advice on open communication and boundaries has usually led to content marriages." The man coughed looking shiftily to the side.

"Inescapable arranged marriages are yet another reason why I am thankful to be born a witch." Elenore blew out a breath. "Honestly I'm constantly impressed of how you humans manage."

"Well seeing as how this human ran away on a stolen donkey cart after a particularly horrendous experience at a lord's ball this human probably shouldn't be counted in amongst those other humans." Milton shuddered at the memory.

"What could have been so horrendous?" Elenore questioned. "I've been to plenty of ballroom parties and aside from the dancing and the alcohol- albeit very watered down and weak alcohol to avoid drunken disconduct- they are mostly fairly dull affairs."

"This was a human lord's ball, hosted by one of the leading religious figures to the religion of the holy sword, no respectable ladies or respectable anybody from outside the human race were in attendance. With very potent alcohol, hired prostitutes disguised as nuns, a mind scarring moment when several anthropomorphic beast prostitutes were revealed to be included in that group, finding out that my then fiancé was in an intimate relationship with her brother, and that my potential father-in-law was inbred to the point of insanity, a very difficult fact to ignore when the man tried to mate with himself in the middle of it all." Milton listed out glumly.

Elenore just stared at the man for a while.

"You cannot make this kind of thing up." Milton swore.

"I'm still technically the Evil queen, is there anybody from those days that you'd like me to turn into a slug?" The witch offered generously.

"…I'll think about it. But first thing's first, I do believe that I was just about to convince you of something important in regards to our feelings for each other." The man pointed out.

The witch hesitated.

"You'll stop and tell me the moment something doesn't feel right to you?" She demanded.

"Yes…" Was the confused reply. "Just what exactly are you propose that we-?"

The man was cut off when a pair of soft lips sealed over his own.

 _Oh_. Milton realized before his brain ceased to work properly.

XXX

Giles cast the hastily written letter he had found on his brother's desk a disapproving glare.

Why did he have to leave Giles in charge? Giles hated having to be the responsible stuffy Headmaster, that ridiculousness was his brother's job not his, he didn't even know how to speak stuffy let alone act like it. Really what had his brother been thinking leaving Giles alone the week Professor Baba Yaga was away doing… whatever she did when she went away? What if Giles ended up blowing something up by accendentally-on-purpose-experamenting-with-a-student's-project-again?

In his defense the students in question- Raven and Sparrow Hood- hadn't known what they had accidentally created either, after Mister Hood had accidentally dropped his candy snack into the solution, and Giles had been curious as to what the gooey tentacle filled glass beaker was. How was he supposed to know that lighting the thing on fire would cause the substance to produce an earsplitting shriek as it leaped out of the container, while it was on fire mind, scuttle at top speeds out of the classroom, through the hallways, out the front doors and dive into the fountain where the water reacted to it's chemical make-up and exploded.

And to be fair it was only a tiny explosion, the rest of the volatile reaction came in the form of a tall, thin shot of sparkling fire that may or may not have been fifteen feet tall; it only lasted a few seconds anyway!

But the fact remained that Giles was at his best as the supporting man, not the actual boss.

But then again his brother was finally confronting Elenore…

This really was a tossup situation when it came down to whether it was a good or bad thing. Especially since Giles began to contemplate whether he could perhaps replicate the results to that particular experiment…


	40. Chapter 40

Clawstorm stood as Mira on her dorm room balcony, laying her crossed arms heavily onto the stone railing grimacing and shifting her weight as a bandaged gash on her arm was aggravated to a dull ache.

"Clawstorm?" A male voice piped up from the prone phone lying beside the witch on the railing.

"Give her a moment dearest, this is one motional rollercoaster that's going to take a moment to sort out." A female voice came through dryly.

"That and Mira Shards was the name of my childhood stuffed animal… and you tell me that my father left yesterday for a long overdue talk with my mother, about the kingdom, the enemy, my daughter, and…" The witch trailed off.

"And you." Red Riding Hood finished sympathetically.

"And me." Clawstorm nodded. "My mother still loves him, enough that she'll give him a chance as long as he behaves himself, and he's always been good about sucking up to the right people."

"You think that he's going to find you out?" Bad Wolf asked in concern.

"Well that all depends on whether or not he's going to insist on her showing him photographs of me as a witchling or have her recount stories of happier days to him. She won't tell him unless she's prompted to, she's the type of woman who'll test him to an inch of his life just to make certain he's on the up and up." Clawstorm mused.

"Should we move you out of the school then?" The man asked. "He's sure to ask your mother about everything."

"Do you really think that he'll ask _that_ much about his disgraceful daughter Bane?" Clawstorm snorted disdainfully. "He'll be curious sure, but probably not enough to be asking about _everything_. The gods only know how much of spin his head was given when he found out about my double life as Clawstorm Grimbook, I hardly doubt that he'll be snooping around for any more surprises-"

"But he will!" Bane insisted. "Why is it so difficult for you to believe that he's starting to care? I told you what I heard!"

"And how do you know that he wasn't just being all sentimental only because I have his blood running through my veins?" Mira demanded, leaning irritably over the phone's screen.

"Because I'm a father too, and I can tell when a man is being phony with his affections towards his kid. King Charming and I have noticed how much of a wreck he's been for the past while, we don't necessarily agree on whether or not his sudden concern for you and little Raven is because of him finding out about the troubles as well as his relation to you two, but we do agree that he wants to get to know you better. It's no small thing to find out that you had been the one to lock your own child away in a mirror for seven years you know." Bane argued. "Especially back when he was convinced that his past behavior towards you had led to your mental breakdown and apparent insanity, and especially, _especially_ now that he knows that your innocent and not insane."

"I'm not innocent!" Clawstorm denied fervently. "And I'd be the first to tell anybody that my sanity is more than rather iffy on a good day…"

"That does not matter to him, he's a father now you nutty woman, before he left he was far too relieved that you were not a genocidal maniac! And he is insanely worried about you right now since he is under the impression that you are currently miles away, injured, and perhaps dying in a remote ditch somewhere." Bad Wolf snorted.

"I'm pretty sure that I woke up in a gutter once or twice after Snowy had sent me that ill written letter after her wedding… or was it after I woke up naked next to Rafael? That entire week had been an absolute blur…" Clawstorm mused, mostly to get the man to stop talking about her father like she should care at all about him. "A grassy ditch might actually be a step up for me."

"You do this on purpose you wicked woman." The Big Bad Wolf's wolf face scrunched up in revulsion.

"I don't think I should be running away just yet." Clawstorm sighed. "If he tries to confine me to a more secure prison, yeah I'll run away, faster than the speed of light and sound, but for now… there is no need to overreact to what has yet to happen, and besides that, it's not like the name Mira or Shards isn't necessarily uncommon from my kingdom. Besides, I'm starting to really enjoy this second chance at school, at the very least I know that Blondie won't be shouting "witch" like it's a bad thing."

"It has done wonders for you to be so accepted." Simone acknowledged with a nod.

XXX

"How long do you think she's going to have her face glued to that book my cousin gave her?" Faybelle murmured as she stared at the wide-eyed blonde princess curled up in the corner of the dark grey couch of the main living area.

"Tomorrow we'll pry her out of it so that we can take a proper bath at the bathhouse." Raven decided as she adjusted her new sunhat she had discovered tucked in where her new clothes could be found in her duffel bag (it would seem as though Apple had finally won the battle against the old stained and hole-filled clothes the witch used to own, which Raven wasn't exactly going to complain about since the articles of clothing were more tattered rags than clothes at this point). "So far we've all been able to just miss each other as we've been using the shower here but it's just better for everyone if we just go to the bathhouse."

"I never knew that these kind of people existed!" Apple defended exasperatedly. "And since I will be interacting with these kind of people while I'm here I don't want to look like an ignorant idiot human by being ill informed, especially since Raven's mom is apart of this specific community, I don't want to embarrass myself or Raven."

"Aw princess, are you forgetting about me?" Faybelle taunted in a babyish tone, earning her a jab to the ribs by Raven.

Apple merely snorted rolling her eyes. "As if, you would just fall to the bathhouse floor or pool laughing at me."

"That I would." The fairy acknowledged unapologetically. "Speaking of which; Raven, you still have as of yet to take a shower." Faybelle observed the witch with keen interest. "And neither have I, we should conserve water by bathing together!"

"Oh yeah, that sounds completely legitimate…" Raven rolled her eyes as her tone dipping into a dark grumble.

"For once Faybelle has come up with a good idea!" Apple stated with false cheer, dropping her book and leaping up from the couch. "There is enough room for three in there, let's all conserve water by sharing!"

The princess cast the surprised fairy a pointed look. "We did say that we would do our best to share, remember?"

"Apple you too?" Raven's eyes widened.

"Yes… I suppose we could have Apple too." Faybelle allowed reluctantly, yet there was a slight not of interest in her tone and gaze as she eyed the two other girls. "She is good with hair after all… and seeing as how her education of the body has been oh so woefully incomplete… I suppose a little demonstration with the resident witch would be-"

"That will not be necessary!" Raven exclaimed with a heavy blush, taking off her hat to reveal her recently washed hair. "I already took a quick shower while you two were out buying groceries earlier!"

"Drat." Apple cursed.

"But we were only gone for like ten minutes!" Faybelle exclaimed. "Hardly enough time for a girl to get her hair washed completely to glowing perfection."

"Speed showering is my specialty as Apple will kindly vouch for me." Raven crossed her arms, glowering at the two.

"There isn't any harm in going in for a second time is there?" The blonde princess blinked innocently, trying to train her best begging eyes at the witch.

Raven's glower became a little bit more severe.

XXX

"Honestly who takes such short showers? Warm water from the tap is only there to be enjoyed by everybody!" Faybelle groused as she rinsed out the lather in Apple's hair. "And how exactly did we end up bathing together without Raven?"

"Because she pushed us in here and threatened to cook us spinach rolls with pulled pork and cabbage for the next several meals if we didn't stop being so perverted and just get clean already." Apple pouted, her knees tucked under her chin as she sat on the padded toilet lid in the tiny shower/toilet room combination.

"And that was with you helping out with your innocent princess tempting tricks alongside my seduction methods." Faybelle tsked. "Both should have been highly effective so it's not either one of our individual faults… she's just very stubborn…"

"I'm not even sure why I suddenly thought that it would be a good idea." Apple confessed. "One minute I was trying to keep you from molesting her while you two were alone and the next I suddenly found this whole showering together thing as good idea…"

"It's called being a healthy teenager with a pulse." Faybelle informed the girl. "Having those kind of urges, especially for the one you love the most is normal."

"But is it normal that I was okay with you being there too?" Apple wondered. "Even for a moment?"

"That depends on whether you were imagining me along with Raven, or just Raven arching and moaning in ecstasy as we surround her and keep her from escaping while we-"

"I was definitely thinking about Raven!" Apple squeaked blushing from head to toe.

"Then you were probably having an unrealized fantasy realized." Faybelle mused. "Again, nothing wrong with it, as long as it's all consensual and you don't spoil things by getting jealous."

"…And what about you?" Apple asked hunching up her shoulders. "You weren't fighting the idea either."

"Raven is my wife and you are our princess." Faybelle shrugged as if that explained everything. "You have to remember princess that it is common in my culture to have more than one lover or spouse and since that said spouse would be involved if we had succeeded, and things would be a lot more simple on my end if we had that experience to tie you down to the both of us, I have little to no issue with it."

"That doesn't make sense." Apple shook her head. "You don't love me."

"But Raven does." Faybelle reminded. "And I am the Evil Fairy Queen, establishing my claim over the most fairest princess of all of Ever After along with establishing claim to my wife in that matter appeals greatly to my fae instincts. It comes from the old days when humans couldn't decide whether they feared us enough to either try to kill us off, or steer as clear as they could from our territories as possible. Every so often when the humans, men mostly, treaded on our toes we did our recon on them, usually we'd steal one of their women, especially if they had children with them, and especially if they fit the profile of someone that wouldn't fight back as much for being taken. The children were given to large fae families raised and taught as our own, the women more often than not ended up in those same family's harems and were also assimilated into our culture."

"You didn't imprison them? The women?" Apple asked.

"Didn't have to most of the time." Faybelle sighed. "Back then, women were treated so terribly in Ever After that a bit of kindness and care from us and they never wanted to go back. That's why there are so many cautionary tales of fae-folk stealing women and children almost exclusively in human literature, even when they were given ample opportunity the women never fought back or returned home and the children… the children became the same as us sooner or later."

The princess bit her lip. "So you weren't joking when you said that I'd be considered Raven's concubine?"

"Human women from the past were famous for becoming some of the most loyal of concubines and harem wives ever known to our kind, feisty too if some human sap tried to steal them back to their world, the humans never could understand why so many of their former wives would rather kill them and stay in their new homes instead of going back to their confined and dreary lives as mere property of human males, it is because of that loyalty that it is still considered of high class for a fae-kin who is the head of a household to have acquired a human for their spouse." Faybelle shrugged nonchalantly. "Almost as high class as being a fairytale character actually..."

"W-wait." Apple tilted her head back until she was staring at the fairy's face. "Are you saying that this whole sharing arrangement would be beneficial to your social standing back home?"

"Beneficial to my social and fairytale standing." Faybelle corrected. "Since you are dead set against the whole fairytale business it would only help me if I said that I was so evil that I managed to acquire you as my wife's human toy by putting you off of the whole Snow White thing myself. Beneficial to you too in some ways… of course you would have to stop trying to steal Raven away and abide by whatever sharing agreement we can reach with each other, although seeing as you are the heir to a human kingdom throne you would probably find more difficulties than benefits if it were all made official…"

Apple looked down running her tongue over the inside of her teeth nervously. "And what if I'm thinking about not becoming Queen of Ever After at all?"

The fairy blinked owlishly at the girl. "What?"

"I'm just thinking about it." Apple murmured to the tiled floor. "And don't tell Raven because she'll be worried that I'd be doing this for her and she'd try to dissuade me from these thoughts, but… it's not for her or because I want to be with her, I'd find some way of doing that even with the responsibility of becoming Queen… no, this is entirely for me."

"Why?" Faybelle asked in astonishment. "I thought that becoming Queen was the only thing you wanted in the whole wide world."

"It's what I've been _told_ that I want." Apple spat poisonously. " _Other_ people said that I wanted the fairytale, _other_ people said that I wanted the kingdom throne, _other_ people said that I wanted to become the fairest princess married to the perfect prince, it was all _their_ wants and wishes imposed on me with such conviction that I was never given the chance to even consider that I had other options, until Raven came along no one asked me what _I_ wanted out of life, no one but her cared!"

"I'm just thinking about it." The princess repeated. "Because now I know that I have options and I know that no matter what Raven will be there to make sure that I always have a safe place to run to when things get tough, and that I won't be completely abandoned for wanting to want something different for myself, I have the freedom now to really wonder what is the best for me."

"…Your childhood makes me really depressed you know that?" Faybelle huffed heavily through her nose. "It's making it difficult to be suitably evil towards you when you are a range from; too oblivious to get it, and; oh dear gods what the hell did they teach you when you were a kid? How am I supposed to be evil if being evil to you is the same pathetic equivalent of toying with a blind, deaf, and limbless animal?" The fairy griped.

Apple winced peering over her shoulder. "Is it really that bad? …My lack of a proper education towards the world outside of the story and… the lies I have been told my entire life?"

"It's worse." Faybelle promised rubbing her temples. "I can completely understand why Raven had been so worried about you, and part of the reason why she stayed at the school instead of letting me spirit her away after the third and fourth ceremonies."

"Well then how do I make things better, I know now that a fairytale can't protect me from the real world so I need to know what I can do so that I don't… end up like my mother." The princess winced as she said this; all of her princess training made her feel as if she were saying the most horrible thing ever by admitting out loud to not wanting to become her mother, why was it easier to say such things to Raven and not anybody else?

Faybelle hesitated, feeling more than a little bit out of her depth. "You won't steal Raven away?"

Apple snorted giving the fairy a flat look. "The agreement was to share remember? Raven doesn't need us to be fighting over her while she is trying to fight for the safety of her family and kingdom. And besides… you need incentive not to poison me anyway right? And you're honor bound to both me and Raven right? So it's your job now to make sure we are all in mutually benefitted territory in exchange for your own personal gain."

Faybelle narrowed her eyes. "You catch on quick…"

"I have a lot of personal investments in all of this if you will recall." Apple replied back coolly.

And if the blonde human kept up this feisty confident attitude Faybelle would be in real danger of becoming quite fond of this new, un-maidenly creature…

Not that it would be a bad thing per-say, as long as it made her appear more evil and resulted in lots of mayhem… plus there was her new bride to think about and her fondness for this human… and how happy she'd be with Faybelle if the fairy and the human started to actually get along, even more so if the princess could wind up acquiring enough life skills to survive outside the witch's sheltering grasp if necessary…

"So how do you suppose we go about convincing Raven that pajamas are overrated?" Faybelle began conversationally.

XXX

Snow White stared blankly at the flames of her private bedroom fireplace as she brooded over her thoughts. Briefly she supposed that for the first time in a long while that she cut the overall perfect image of a maiden in distress, her pout must especially look picture perfect since she had her bi-weekly lip injection a few hours ago.

But it didn't matter to her how well she looked in her distressed state, it hadn't ever mattered to her since high school, since the poisonings had stopped and… since the dreams had stopped.

Maelstorm existed in the real world, he was Clawstorm in her male form, Snow White had wanted a Prince Charming and a happily ever after and so Clawstorm, her supposed villain, had provided her with one since the Prince Charming outside of the dreams was unable to provide her with one, by offering up a version of herself instead.

Gender-shifting, a condition where a witch or warlock is born with varying degrees of traits from the other gender, confusing the individual's magic into occasionally changing their gender either on it's own or at will, or at least that's what the books had described the matter.

Snow White had thought it odd when Clawstorm's voice as a teenager occasionally cracked or deepened, or how she looked a bit taller or broader in the shoulders on occasion…

"She _knew_." Snow White wondered at the concept her manicured fingertips coming up to her (still sore) lips.

Clawstorm knew that Snow White had been struggling her first few months of high school, that it was becoming immensely obvious that Prince Charming was not built to the task of becoming her perfect prince, at anytime Clawstorm could have called her out- could have called them both out on the public farce that they had been keeping up, but she never did! She suffered through Snow White's outright bullying and the whole school looking down their noses at the witch in silence… not because Clawstorm was a wuss, but because she… she was _honorable_ and… _loyal_ towards the White family, towards Snow White.

…Just like a Prince Charming would be towards their princess.

All this time Snow White had been praying for the perfect prince to give her the perfect fairytale ending that she had been looking for, and when Prince Charming had failed to do that himself, she had put pressure onto Apple to have a better ending… so that Snow White could at least have a perfect maiden daughter who had everything that Snow White had thought that she had been denied-

But Snow White had not been denied anything. She had _asked_ for this ending, she had practically shouted it from the rooftops that she had wanted this Prince Charming and that she wanted to appear like the most fair and perfect maiden in all of Ever After and have the most evilest of villains in all the worlds as her fairytale enemy…

And Clawstorm had delivered that to her, gave her just the ending that Snow White had always desired… and had even gone a few steps further to give her princess what she wanted, what she asked for.

Never in her life had she ever felt more romanced and on top of the world than when she was in one of Clawstorm's sleep induced spells. Maelstorm, although not the perfect textbook prince, was the perfect prince for her, with his bewitching manners and his tempting air… in the dreams he had been so sweet and loving in a way that was all-encompassing, filling every fiber of her being until she could not stand she was so overwhelmed by it all, not that she had ever complained about feeling so loved especially since Maelstorm had been there to hold her in his arms. Those dreams with the man had been completely and utterly magical… on more than one level…

But the fact still remained that… that Maelstorm was real, had always been real, he was Clawstorm, he had always been Clawstorm from the very beginning, one and the same and…

…And he… she- whatever the word was for Clawstorm- the witch was _her_ prince, her _real true_ prince. Not a Prince Charming, but something more darkly exotic and forbidden, yet so storybook perfect at the same time. Now that Snow White took the time to think back on it… Clawstorm was actually perfect for her, it was almost as if the witch was… born for her, if she dared think upon it in those kind of terms…

But Her real prince was so far from Snow White's grasp now she just… what was she to do now that the truth had finally been realized and- _gods_ how could she have been so _blind_? Clawstorm and Maelstorm aside from gender appearance were exactly the same! In everything! From their mannerisms and personality to their maddening bewitching smirks and sharp intelligence! It should have been painfully obvious that dream Maelstorm was real life Clawstorm in male form but Snow White had chosen to be selectively blind to it!

Did… was it possible that… Clawstorm had loved her back then? Was that the reason why she was so hesitant to be outrageously villainous to Snow White in the beginning? Why the witch had taken pains to avoid her? Murmur in what had sounded at the time to be sarcastic tones… but could have just been tones of heartbroken despair that Snow White's wishes were the witch's to command and fulfill to the best of her abilities?

How _tragic_!

Everything was a shambled mess now! The things that she had done to spite Clawstorm all turning out so horribly, Apple finding out about it and being so angry that the girl could barely stand to look at her, Clawstorm having to clean up Snow White's mistakes by-

What kind of sorry excuse for a Snow White had she become? She wasn't a fair maiden at all, no… with her credentials she was nothing but a…

 _She_ was the villain in this story not Clawstorm. Paying for her crimes and bad deeds just like the villains of the past had to.

…But not as badly as Clawstorm was currently paying for crimes that the witch had not committed…

Snow White stood up with a determined air, stopping by her vanity to reapply her make-up (honestly tears made things so difficult for a maiden of her age to keep up a youthful appearance) before heading out of her room and making her way to her private office (not to be confused for her official office).

She was Snow White after all and her prince (or as close as she'd ever come to a true storybook prince) very well might be in need of her assistance to get her out of prison and to somewhere safe.

…Even though Clawstorm probably hated her by now, She would still come to the witch's aid.

It was the least that she could do after everything that had happened.

XXX

"You want to arrange a private meeting with the Evil Queen?" Giles blinked owlishly at the mirror-pad that the secretary was holding up to him, the candy bar in the tongs he was holding over a bowl of bubbling green liquid squishing a little bit from the force of him squeezing just a little bit too hard. "Any particular reason why you would want to?"

"I… merely have a few things that I wish to discuss with her." Snow White stated cryptically. "Why are you holding a candy bar, and why is your staff all hiding behind tables and wearing protective gear?" She asked, nodding to where Rumplestiltskin and the Big Bad Wolf were looking over a lab table at her in confusion.

"Because potential explosions make them nervous." Giles shrugged.

"Wait, what?" The secretary stepped back. "Sir I am no being paid enough for this-"

"Honorable Giles Grimm I have some paperwork from the News Club that- oh. My many apologies for interrupting, I'll come back later." A low voice spoke from off screen, the sound making Snow White freeze as she recognized the voice.

"It's perfectly fine Mira, just bring the papers over, and how many times do I have to tell you that there is no need to be so formal with the titles, I'm just Giles around here." Giles stated motioning a redheaded girl over to his side.

"But everyone is above my station here." The tan girl with the familiar voice argued as she put on a pair of safety glasses without having to be told to, the flourish in which she puts on the glasses exactly like how Clawstorm used to put on safety glasses before a lab or a potion class. "I do not want to seem rude to anybody."

"This is a high school not a royal court, you are allowed to be informal with people here." Giles chastised lightly as he took the pen offered to him and signed the papers provided.

"Mira?" Snow White murmured, the name stirring up a memory. "M _ira Shards_?"

Said girl snapped her head up towards the woman on screen, her vague look of alarm hauntingly familiar.

Mira blinked rapidly for a moment before swallowing the hard lump in her throat and bowing deeply. "Your Fair Excellency, my sincere apologizes I did not see you."

Snow White was struck silent, the sarcastic tone and flair was missing but that-… that was how Clawstorm used to address her, no one else had ever called her Fair Excellency aside from the witch.

"I'll just set this here." The secretary announced in the ensuing awkward silence, propping up the mirror-pad on a stack of books before taking her leave.

"Have you two met before?" Giles queried, looking between the two females.

"Ah, not to my knowledge sir, however Miss Blondie Lockes has informed me in the past that my appearances on the mirror blogs and the news casting show has gained me some… unexpected attention around the school. I assume that is how her Fair Excellency has heard of my name?" Mira peeked up at Snow White, her gaze calculating and appearing ready to flee at any given moment.

"Your name is very familiar." Snow White nodded, her eyes narrowed at the girl in suspicion. "Giles might I ask about the whereabouts of the Evil Queen?"

Just as she asked Giles dropped the candy bar into the mixture and with several suspicious gurgles the liquid turned to a muddy brown, thickening and sprouting tentacles.

But Snow White's eyes were locked onto the Mira Shards girl, who was in turn giving the woman the exact same raised eyebrow and look that Clawstorm had always given her in the past.

"Whoops looks like we'll have to put our conversation off for the time being Snow White." Giles announced a little too gleefully as he batted away the forming potion's arms with a glass stirring rod. "But I'll contact my brother about this when he gets back and we will see what we can do."

"Might I query as to why?" Mira piped up almost desperately before Giles could end the call. "Forgive me, I know that it is not my place, however it is not every day that a queen requests to see such a dangerous criminal."

Ignoring Giles's confused glance at the girl Snow White tilted her head to the side as she regarded the younger.

"I merely wish to ask the Evil Queen about some evidence that has come to light about her supposed innocence. It is very strange for a villain to have acted so… selflessly." Snow White stated, assessing the girl intensely.

"I'm certain that many people would find such a thing coming from a witch of her blood to be very strange." Mira spoke, a tinge of bitterness and disappointment in her otherwise emotionless tone, her reflective eyes trained downward like that of an old abused creature that has just simply given up hoping for different treatment from the world at large. With a start Snow White realizes that the girl is a witch from the reflectivity of the girl's pupils. "Life is funny, throwing those kind of un-scripted things into the mix."

"So we shall talk later." Giles finishes quickly, ending the call.

"You do know that you don't have to worry about that kind of prejudice here." Giles spoke up, stopping Mira in her retreating steps. "Royalty or no Ever After is a school of tolerance toward other cultures, even if it doesn't seem like it at times, there are precautions in place that protect students of all races. No one, not even a king or queen is allowed to harm any of you."

Mira turns to face the man with a smile that is too wide to be real. "I am comforted by you assurances." She states in a tone too cheerful to be deemed as true, her overall body posture screams that she doesn't believe a word that Giles has said. "Thank you for taking the trouble to sign these papers Honorable Giles Grimm, if you will excuse me I must take my leave now."

"I am speaking the truth Mira." Giles calls one last time to the girl's retreating back. "If something happens don't be afraid to speak up, you will be protected. I promise."

That makes the girl falter, casting the man a confused and… almost hopeful stare for a long moment before she simply nods her head and disappears from the room.


	41. Chapter 41

A/n: I've realized that I'm starting to put too much subplots into this story so I'm going to try to pull it back a little and try to tie in all of these loose ends until it's just about working towards an ending with an epic showdown and aftermath with all of the main relationships and pairings intact. Think of it like weaving a blanket of subplots that contribute to the main body of work and there will still be stuff going on in the background, but it won't be the main focus which will mainly be about our main bad guys, the strange relationship between Apple, Raven, and Faybelle, and Clawstorm.

Also Faybelle is still going to be pretty evil (by fairy and fairytale standards).

And nothing gets by Raven in her own household. She's just that kind of housewife.

XXX

Daring stares at Maid Marion with wide eyes as he watches her spar with her son in the gym for fun, the woman's eyes are fierce as she eyes her opponent carefully, her fiery red hair slowly falling out of it's tight bun as time wears on, her body posture is like that of a coiled snake, waiting for just the right moment to strike, she is wild and untamed and yet she holds her control in a vice grip wisely directing hits to teach and punish for slip-ups, sending praise only where it is due and cunningly using her and her student's performance to show an example to her prodigy.

Daring places a hand over his fast beating heart, attempting to quell its attempts to beat itself up his dry throat and out of his mouth.

He swears for just a moment too long that he is in love.

When the thought finally registers in his brain the boy races away, not bothering to stop and find a decent excuse to his friends who call after him in confusion or even explain things to Darling as he just simply plucks her up and away from the basketball court as he goes by and races the both of them out of the building.

Dexter doesn't know what is going on at first, he was merely minding his own business, sleeping in like a normal person when suddenly his sister was shouting, the dorm door was slamming, and there was two heavy weights compressing on top of him. But then one look at Darling's outraged face as she was pinned under a panic-stricken Daring sort of clued him in just a little bit.

"Are they out of your favorite hair products at the market again?" Dexter asked slowly.

"No! Thank goodness it's not that, but it's something different- someone different. She's so beautiful and strong and independent and not maidenly at all and when I saw her I-I just…" Daring trailed off blushing beat red and looking away.

"Ah, so Raven's grandmother has come to school?" Dexter asked.

"No!" Daring wailed dramatically. "It was a different woman! The feelings were the same but the woman was not the beautiful Elenore!"

Dexter slowly blinked at his brother.

"Darling my brain is still too sleepy could you take over from here?" Dexter asked his sister who was glowering spitefully into his collarbone.

"Daring, you feel the same intense attraction for two separate women?" Darling huffed trying to blow hair out of her face.

"Yes." Daring sniffed.

"And are they both older than you, and completely un-maiden-like?" Their sister growled out in a way that suggested that she knew intuitively exactly what was going on.

"And they are both strong and powerful and they can defeat their enemies swiftly while making their wild and untamed natures look like they are as gorgeously dangerous as battle experienced Valkyries." Daring waxed poetically. "Against all odds going out into battle with-"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it; they're awesome bad asses." Darling snorted disdainfully. "Its called having a type Daring. You feel the way you do not because you are in love with these women in particular, but because you are overall extremely attracted to older women, who are independent, not maiden-like, and can hold their ground in a fight."

Daring paused to mull over this information for a moment.

"Well I do suppose that makes sense…" He admitted. "But if these intense feelings are just those of mere attractions what's a crush or actual love going to feel like? Daring asks fretfully.

"You'll be bowled completely over." Dexter predicted sagely, grunting softly when Darling tried to scoot out and ended up pinching his side between her hand and the mattress in the process.

"How did you know this about me?" Daring asked their sister, placing more weight over the top of his younger siblings to keep them from escaping.

"Because it's all you've been able to talk about for days, these reasons why you are so into this strange woman that you had just met so briefly now _getoff_!" Darling let out a growling roar as she found her grip and rolled herself and Daring off of Dexter.

"This is wonderful news!" Daring cheered putting his sister into a headlock.

"It is?" Dexter asked wearily as he scotched away from his wrestling siblings.

"It means that I can find a woman that I can stand a chance with! Elenore and Professor Maid Marion are fantastic but they are both rather daunting to try to enter a relationship with." Daring giggled as Darling flipped him over and pinned him down.

"Too much information brother dear." Darling growled out when Daring attempted to tickle her.

"And I am going to pretend that I did not hear that." Dexter could do nothing but roll his eyes as he hopped out of bed and headed towards the bathroom. "Congratulations, by the way, on your big revelation about yourself Daring." The younger boy called over his shoulder.

"Yes! Isn't it grand?" Daring grinned widely, hugging his struggling sister close as he still attempted to tickle her.

Really a big brother couldn't ask for better siblings.

XXX

It should have been impossible, so much time had passed and they had both grown into different people over the years, really it should not have been so easy to start up with the same zeal that they had when they were young and had hope for a future.

But then a gain maybe that was why it had felt so easy, it was far too early to be saying that they were going to make it but there had been something there, something that fit into place in the places where the separation, betrayal, and the hurt had left holes that had never really been filled properly, that neither of them had wanted to fill.

They were still themselves but still they were different versions of themselves, older, a little wiser, and perhaps a little smarter about love this time around.

There was something there, something tangible to work with but the question now was whether or not something so fragile could survive in the coming trials ahead.

"So… do you feel a sense of closure now… or regret…?" Milton fidgeted his fingers nervously into the cuffs of his shirt and picked at a stray thread of his vest, looking tentative and worried from his end of the antique-replica couch they were both sitting on.

Elenore huffed a breath through her nose, smiling softly as she curled up further into the man's jacket that had been given to her to keep her form from getting too cold. "No regrets, a bit of closure, but mostly hope? There was a flicker of something on my end, I'm fairly confident that depending on how you feel it could either turn into friendship or something more given time and lost of honesty."

Milton sagged in relief, grinning widely as he leaned over to steal a kiss, one of many to come or so he hoped.

"You kept the wand I gave you." Milton hummed, helping the witch maneuver herself so that she could lean against his side contently. "I've seen our granddaughter use it, I had thought that you threw it away."

"I'll admit I had been tempted at one point, however it is a very good wand and it was something that I could tell my daughter that definitely came from her father if she had ever wanted to ask more about you." Elenore gave the man a cheeky grin. "That was one of the reasons why I gave it to Raven, I wanted her to have a little something from her grandfather… of course that was before…"

"I had forced us to separate." The man finished solemnly. "Didn't see how good I had it until I threw it all away."

"I was going to say that certain circumstances prevented me from recruiting Giles to help me drag you into fatherhood whether you liked it or not…" Elenore trailed off.

"Well I am here now." Milton spread his arms. "And I don't plan on going anywhere."

"Good because you are going to take me out on a proper date to the nearby gardens and afterwards we can discuss how we plan on making this new thing between us work." Elenore smirked, a determined look in her eye.

"I'm so glad that your back." Milton smiled fondly at the woman.

XXX

Cedar outstretched her arms in wonder, giggling in delight when a butterfly landed on her arm, as she danced around the front lawn of the school.

"She's adapting well after the shock of everything has died down." Briar observed from the sidewalk.

"She's got a lot of questions, and some I couldn't even answer." Cerise sighed. "The Healers and her father warned that it's going to be quite the eventful next few months as she learns all the complexities of being a being of flesh and blood."

"She's so… innocent." Daring realized with a mixture of awe and hurt. "Will she be all right when the harsher things in life come to beat her down? Hurt her?"

"Like it has harmed you?" Cerise glanced over to the boy knowingly.

"Fairytales can't protect us from real life." Daring mumbled to the ground darkly. "It isn't fair that we had been lied to and told otherwise. If we had just been told the truth…"

"You would have been prepared and it would have hurt less." Briar finished looking contemplative. "Do you… do you think that whatever happened between Raven and the Book of Legends… do you suppose that she has somehow freed us? Is that the reason why Cedar and the rest of them are… human now?"

"Well her actions on Legacy Day has already freed many people from our cursed duties to our stories." Daring hummed looking up at the sky. "But it still feels like we've been left behind you know? We're still stuck in the past while the kingdoms we rule over are far into the future, perhaps our need to stick so strictly to past traditions is far too inappropriate, just look at Mira, she's terrified of the lot of us. In other schools calling a witch evil or automatically assuming that when something goes wrong it has to be a witch's fault is considered highly racist and bad form for just assuming such things just because there is a witch around."

"Well yeah, but to be fair that same racism can go the other way too Daring, I mean have you heard how Faybelle talks? She makes it sound as though humans are the most despicable race to have ever existed." Cerise pointed out carefully.

"I'd be as bitter as she is too if I had to live at Ever After High." Daring argued back with a soft huff. "I'm not saying that Faybelle, or the rest of them are in the right to be talking stuff like that about humans, but on the other hand look at this place, it's the most diverse school in Ever After and yet it is guided by human social norms, dark aged human schools of magical thought, and human fairytale stories! I mean can you name one story where the human isn't the main character, a good guy character who isn't human but is the main character and not the supporting cast, or a character that wants to become human?"

The two girls visibly scrunched up their faces as they wracked their brains for a story title, a character, anything.

"Well I'm sure that there has to be at least one right?" Cerise asked tentatively.

"One in and amongst how many other stories?" Daring challenged.

"Oh." Briar bit her bottom lip. "…And there is… I can't think of an older fairytale that doesn't have a witch cast as the main bad guy…"

"Exactly." Daring stated. "How can we just expect people like Faybelle to see our race as equal and legitimate if we are the ones instigating these racist concepts in the first place? Raven said that Faybelle has family who are witches and ogres and other people who we at Ever After High label as bad or evil just simply based on race and family ties, it's little wonder that she hates us so badly!"

"You've put a lot of thought into this." Briar observed.

"Yeah well…" Daring sighed. "I've just… started noticing these things after-… Raven, she understood the hurt that I was going through at the time, so well that once I bothered to look a little bit closer I realized that… this place can be pretty messed up at times. How often has the Royal faction sneered or shied away from someone just because of their family ties or because of their race? Or even their gender? Ginger is one of the kindest witches I know and people still like to hurt her feelings by calling her a cannibal, even though nobody is actually in danger of getting eaten by her in the recreation of the story, everybody knows this and yet they still treat her horribly and my sister is still getting flack from people who just don't understand that a girl is perfectly capable of being a knight or a prince too."

"So just for clarification… you are saying that a lot of the humans in the worlds outside of fairytales, namely most of the future citizens a lot of you will rule over one day, understand the concept of equal rights better than their future monarchs?" Cerise asked, a note of hope catching in her voice that only Briar understood the real implications for.

"Yes." Daring nodded. "Ever After High may be one of the best schools for future rulers to attend, but it is still the most racist and sexist in existence too."

The two girls shared a knowing smile before beaming proudly at the boy.

"…You two already knew about this…" Daring pouted.

"Yes but sometimes it's nice hearing someone willing to point it out so freely." Cerise's beaming grin shrank into an almost wistful look. "Having to listen to talk day in and day out about destinies and roles and expectations kind of makes you feel a special kind of sad inside, especially if you are a girl or from a villain family and that you know that at one point in time your family line was seen as important and honorable but then over time that all crumbled away because old outdated ideals on race superiority and political nonsense came in and reduced everything down to what we are today. Nothing but one side believing that they are better than the rest for having a better story ending and the other side forced to suffer in silence."

"The people who are hurting Raven's family and kingdom are using their lineage as if it's a viable excuse for murder." Daring murmured quietly.

"They want to start a race war." Briar stated coldly, her expression softening as Cedar giggled and rolled down a grassy hill. "We may not know the reasons why but somebody is trying to resurrect the bad old days of Ever After, back when everybody was terrified of each other."

"Back when lots of human kingdoms used to be the real bad guys." Daring looked down in guilt.

"Back when every kingdom used to be bad." Cerise corrected softly. "Not all humans were bad just like not all the other races were good."

"Yes but humans in Ever After were the most brutal, even to each other- _especially_ to each other, just look at what they tried to do to Wonderland, and let's not forget that my home kingdom and Apple's family's old kingdom used to be bitter enemies, we both thought that we were better than the other so we tried to kill each other off." Daring spoke sullenly.

"But that was way back into the past you guys." Cerise sighed at the guilty looks the two humans were giving the sidewalk. "The bad guys may be trying to resurrect the bad old days but there is a lot more proper education and interaction and… mixed marriages these days. It is because of this that I know that they will not succeed, Raven, Ginger, and a lot of others don't hold it against humans or any other races as a whole for things that happened between our ancestors in the past, what matters to them are you actions now. How you are going to contribute now so that we won't be seeing the bad old days come back."

The prince and princess exchanged a look.

"It's still pretty difficult for ancestor driven families not to feel ashamed of some of the things that happened in the past sweetie." Briar pointed out.

"Then don't act like your ancestors, act like yourselves and treat others equally, that's really the best thing that you can do, I know that people like Mira and Raven appreciate it." Cerise gave a small smile to Briar, silently telling the princess that she appreciated being treated as an equal too. "Trust me I live in the forest when I'm not living here, having respect for others and resect towards you in return… means everything sometimes."

Before either prince or princess could speak Cerise chuckled, pointing past them. "Looks like somebody tired herself out." Cerise continued to chuckle as she started walking towards the fast asleep girl on the lawn, the other two close on her heels.

"Speaking of resident witches, I hope Mira can one day feel safe enough here to open up a little, she's really brave and smart but it's obvious that she feels like it could all turn bad on her on a moment's notice." Briar sighed.

"She reminds me a little of my and Sparrow's uncle Malstorm, he and her are really similar in personality, it's a shame that he lives so far away though. I'd love to meet him in person but his job hasn't allowed anything aside from old-fashioned calls from the big mirror." Cerise sighed.

"I really like her too." Daring confessed. "She reminds me of my godmother, Auntie Clawstorm, they even have the same hair color. It's too bad that she's never able to visit us, she's the one who helped me perfect my Charming grin you know, it would be nice to show it to her face to face instead of an old mirror…"

Briar looked at the other two in weary alarm. "Well… she reminds me a lot like a close friend of my aunt's who lives very far away and could only contact us through the mirror, my cousin and I used to spend hours listening to the woman tell us stories. …Her name is Mira actually and she too has red hair like the Mira here does and lives too far away to visit…"

The three teens share uneasy looks.

"Didn't Apple say that Raven's mother was able to change gender at will?" Briar glanced to Daring. "And that her male name was Malstorm?"

"I suppose that Mira is a common name…" Daring mumbled. "Is Clawstorm a common name too?"

"My parents always defended Raven's mom, said that there was always more than one side to a story…" Cerise murmured to the sky.

A moment of silence (save for Cedar's snoring) passed between them.

"Nah, it can't be." Cerise shook her head. "…Could it?"

"Hey!" Mira called out from the sidewalk, waving at the three as she jogged over.

"Oh I'm sorry, I didn't see that she was asleep." The witch whispered as she drew close.

"It's fine." Cerise waved the witch off as she stooped to pick Cedar up. "She sleeps like a log, almost nothing can wake her up before she's ready."

"I just wanted to check in and make sure that she's doing alright." Mira crooned down to the slumbering girl in the hooded girl's arms. "It's been an eventful couple of days."

"It really has." Briar nodded. "How are the rest of the students so far? Do you know?"

"So far there has been nothing reported but relief." Mira informed seriously. "No one is certain what this means for the faction conflict but it seems as though most students are taking a moment to enjoy their newfound freedoms before getting too worried about what this means for the dynamic at school. I'm hoping that when Apple comes back she can help settle any potential panic."

"Which reminds me; Blondie and Cupid wanted us to find you so that you and the news club could further formulate plans to deal with all the changes going on, and also to tell you to turn on your phone." Briar informed the witch.

"Oh bother." Mira cursed taking out her phone to turn it on. "I keep forgetting to turn it on after class! Ooh I'll never catch up with modern technology at this rate!"

The teens (save for Cedar who was still sound asleep) all cast each other bewildered looks at the way the witch phrased her words.

"You didn't have much tech growing up did you?" Briar asked slowly.

"Oh no, the Enchanted Mirror was very strict about that kind of thing." Mira shrugged. "Though it wasn't too bad, we didn't need all this new stuff back home."

"But isn't the Queen kingdom one of the most technologically advanced in regards to mirror technology, just second to Ever After?" Briar asked with a raised brow.

"I think that it was jealousy for the most part, you know how old mirrors can get when newer versions come out with all these different features." Mira shrugged again. "That and an Enchanted Mirror can't use a tech-mirror very well."

"Uh huh." Briar looked at the witch strangely. "Well good luck with the news club stuff."

"Thank you for the luck _little rose_." Mira smiled charmingly fond, a true charming smile, as she started to walk off.

"Did your aunt's friend used to call you little rose?" Cerise asked Briar once the witch was out of earshot.

"Ye-ah…" The princess stared after Mira with a bewildered look.

"That was a Charming smile." Daring whispered in shock. "Nobody outside of the families do that kind of smile."

"Nobody?" Briar raised a skeptical brow.

"Well no one that I know of aside from Auntie Mira…" Daring trailed off looking uncertain.

"This is weird." Cerise grumbled. "Even by our standards."

XXX

"Don't want to leave." Apple pouted as she clutched onto Raven. "It's going to be too empty in the dorm without you there."

"I'll see you two next weekend, and I'll call. Promise." Raven swore, accepting a departing kiss from Faybelle and then one from Apple before the fairy dragged the princess away towards the waiting carriage.

Charlotte cast the fellow witch a confused look. "So… you're with _both_ of them?"

"Not sure." Raven admitted honestly watching as the carriage grew smaller and smaller into the distance. "They've developed a truce of sorts so far as I've been able to overhear… really I've got not choice but to wait for things to settle down long enough to see what they've mapped out. Gods only know that I'll be way too preoccupied to be of any help."

"Two magical beings and one human all under one tiny roof…" Charlotte trailed off. "My cousin is either incredibly idiotic or incredibly brave, especially considering the fairy race's long blood-stained history involving taking human women and children away from their realms by force to be used as food or the playthings of fae-kind. Even if everything is completely consensual in this particular case I highly doubt that a fair maiden princess would feel very safe with one of the dreaded Thorn Clan. Hex, I wouldn't be all that surprised if one or two of _Princess Apple White's_ ancestors are still being held as a captive plaything in some fairy lord's manor."

Raven rubbed the back of her neck guiltily, the walls between the kitchen and the shower were rather thin and did not impede spoken conversation from being overheard, especially if one dutifully kept their ear to the door to make sure no fighting broke out in such a tiny space. "Er… let's just say that Apple has been… rather uninformed about any stories that do not relate to fairytales. It is not seen as proper for a maiden to be reading material outside of her character role in Ever After."

Charlotte made a face as a niggling suspicion tickled the back of her mind.

"What did my dear cousin tell her?" Charlotte demanded wearily.

"It may have been mentioned that some humans grew to love their new fairy prisons…" Raven looked to the side shiftily.

"And by some you mean that she implied that there were many, more than there actually was?" The platinum blonde witch raised a brow.

"…Yes." Raven sighed.

"Ignorance is bliss." Charlotte hummed. "Well it should be entertaining at the very least to see your princess's reaction when she finds out."

"The tradition of the human maiden fighting off the fairy trickster may very well be upheld." Raven predicted wearily. "Apple is rather proficient at using her purse like a weapon depending on how mad she gets…"


	42. Chapter 42

A/n: Sorry about taking so long to update this but at a certain point about a month or two back I had ran into some… let's just say it was a very _trying_ time attempting to work with some very annoying people who had such limited world views to the subject matter that I had difficulties with gritting my teeth into a resemblance of a smile and just simply bearing with it. I did not mean to but my irritation over my professional life bled over into taking out most of my frustrations into my fanfictions in an attempt to keep the creative juices flowing in my brain long enough to see my professional projects to the end.

I am still trying to get my creative groove back but it has been difficult, the stress of having all of my ideas simultaneously brushed off as being childish and the instructions for what I was supposed to do were unhelpfully vague even when I asked for clarification over a dozen times. I grew increasingly worried for one person who was in charge because I kept being lectured about either expressing my " _dark and tragic past_ " (I don't have one btw) or sticking it to the man and how I should focus my efforts with taking to the streets (after I ceased acting like a child and did some extreme modifications to the project that would fit into _their_ ideals) and proceed to flip everybody off. After a while (aka after I asked how I was supposed to get the _money_ to support myself if I took off suddenly and started acting like such a self-centered _jerk_ they stated that if I was truly committed to " ** _The Cause_** " (whatever the hell that means) in the right way I wouldn't be caring about money or, you know, **_food_** because I would be fighting for **_The Cause_** , the **_Revolution_** and I would be true to myself by doing all of this exactly as they say, etc. etc.) I suddenly realized that this person was talking about things and events that had been done in the late _1960's_ , things that proven to be highly ineffective save for the ones who had " _sold out_ " and had made obscene amounts of money in being rebels to the mentioned dreaded _man_ (aka the rich people they were selling stuff- like posters and music that had _REVELUTION_ written in them- to).

To say the least I am still highly confused as to how this related to the projects that we were doing (this is why I like to work alone).

The whole situation was both so frustrating and ridiculous that it feels like ideas of where to go next in my professional work are reluctant to show themselves in my brain and for a while I was grasping at straws for ideas for this fic because so much of my frustration had been poured into a few of these chapters that I had to think of other ways to get to the ending I want.

 _I will_ finish this fic, but with the way it is I'm going to have to defeat the bad guys here and deal with all these personal things from the other characters in a string of sequels, or drabbles, or _something_ , which I am perfectly fine with doing.

Another reason why I haven't updated lately is because I needed to coax my sense of humor back from it's hiding place and rediscover why I did certain things in this fic in the first place (namely I forgot why I was working towards a Faybelle/Raven/Apple threesome and then I remembered that I had initially found the idea so hilarious that I laughed out loud and made it so), so I will finish this… but seeing as how I had unintentionally stunted myself it may take a while…

Maybe I could try to write a humorous little thing about my experiences with working with people who come from a completely different mindset and refuse to budge or make compromises in order to not only get the project done in time but to also accept that everybody has a different opinion than them.

Relevancy and respecting others is also important like the time a certain _someone_ tried to convince me to clamor atop a steep roof five stories off the ground, _stark naked_ btw, and shout "down with the institution!" and "REVOLUTION!", without knowing _exactly what_ we were rebelling against.

On a lighter note I do hope that everybody is having a nice summer without any… non-fun odd situations running around, sorry if this is a bit long but I really had to get this off my chest.

XXX

"Did you remember to draw power from the heart of your core and not the outside girl?" A strict voice barked through the mirror. "Remember what I have always taught you about how to use your surroundings to your advantage in a battle situation!"

"What?" The Headmaster squinted at the wispy humanoid face of the magic mirror, as if what he had just heard was an illusion and soon the object would begin speaking in more appropriate hysterical tones of a worried parent with an injured child.

"Sir, yes sir! I utilized all of my training to the best of my abilities sir!" Mira smartly saluted the mirror before her, the girl standing at full attention. "However the enemy's abilities outmatched mine in both experience and trained magical output. I was unable to keep up long enough to defeat the enemy and I accept all responsibility for my failure sir!"

"It's good that you feel that way girl, although I raised and trained you better you should know by now that any hesitation to protect the heirs to the crown and land will be met with harsh repercussions and extra training, no exceptions! Even for my own daughter." The mirror's voice warned sternly.

"Understood sir!" Mira kept her eyes focused in front of her, the perfect picture of a proper soldier, bandaged injuries, lacy dress, and all.

"Hold on now!" The Headmaster interrupted with an edge to his voice. "I called you so that we could rationally discuss the situation of your daughter becoming injured because she up and traveled to danger-filled Wonderland and ended up getting into a scrap with a dangerous criminal!"

"And to ensure that my daughter has a better chance at being victorious in future battles I expect you to help ensure that she is encouraged to place herself into more classes that involve the subjects of battle preparation and magical defense." The mirror instructed as if such a thing should have been obvious.

Milton stared at the mirror in horror for a moment before shaking his head and moving protectively behind his student. "Pardon me but am I to understand that you are not concerned with the fact that Miss Shards could have been injured far worse than she currently is for going forth with this outrageous stunt?"

"We have been teetering on the edge of war for many years Headmaster." The mirror spoke coldly. "The needs of the many and the stability of the state outweigh the lives of the few, you may think such a concept to be cruel however if a day comes where my daughter must sacrifice herself for the sake of the survival and future happiness for all of witch-kind then there is no helping the situation. Even as her parent, who has raised her and loved her to the fullest of my capacities, and although my personal feelings would wish nothing more than to see her live a long happy life, the harsh reality is that currently there can be no greater honor than my daughter doing everything in her power to ensure the future survival of her kin and beloved homeland. It is this ideal and the looming threat to our existence that has forced myself and many others like me, to have been training our children to become our lands top defense, even if it means that they must lay down their lives in the process."

Clawstorm fought the urge to squint at the mirror in suspicion; this was a bit of a strange twist from the original plan of make-the-Headmaster-sputter-indignantly-and-comically-as-he-was-thrown-for-a-loop-by-the-crazy-parent. What was her friend getting up to now?

"This is _insanity_!" The Headmaster accused. "You can't teach your daughter to become a soldier for a war that has not happened and may never transpire! …And just how long have you been "training" her may I ask?"

The ghostly white face gave an impression of raising one thoroughly unimpressed eyebrow. "Not that it is your business but the girl has been gently brought into her training and teachings since I had adopted her at the age of three."

" _Three_ -…" The Headmaster sounded like his breath had been kicked out of his lungs.

"What I have done is hardly all that different from your job of conditioning and breeding a strain of fairytale youth to conform to their ancestor's personalities, habits and appearances." The mirror scolded the man who had gently taken a startled Mira (Clawstorm) by her thin shoulders and loomed protectively over the small witch, as if his scowl alone could scare the mirror away.

"It is not and you know it!" He hissed. "You are speaking about a little girl's life as if it were expendable! I may not be perfect, I'll be the first to admit that, but never in my reign as Headmaster had a single one of my students have to worry about giving up their lives for the story! Not while I still live or have a lingering say in things would I ever let that happen to one of my students! If you still do not trust in that then at least think of your beloved Queen and her family, for I know for a fact that they would never condone this- …this recruitment of children to be used as war fodder!"

"It is true that the rulers to our homeland love their people dearly and would do whatever they could, even risking their own lives and reputations for the sake of their people." The mirror conceded. "However this too puts our lands in danger, for their relationship to this land is symbiotic, if they are all sacrificed for the safety of their people then a vacuum will form in the way of things, and we all know how much nature hates a vacuum." The mirror's tone was grave.

Clawstorm blinked, the words spoken had not been anything that Clawstorm had not heard before, nor anything she had not fretted over verbally in the company of her closest friends and allies, it was however a _very_ well kept secret amongst the Queen family that the land and their bloodline were so tightly connected to each other. Traditionally Queen witches (not warlocks or any other male relative since this was something that stayed in the strictly female side of the line and _oh_ did the land _love_ it's maternal ties), were informed of their bond to the land in private by their closest female relatives when they turned the witching age of thirteen.

No one outside of the family was supposed to know about this bond for the safety of the royal family (a rule that Clawstorm had broken because her daughter had nearly been killed and she was begging her horrified friends for help and it all sort of slipped out on accident), if it became known that killing off the three most recent generations to the throne would snap the land into such a shock that it would accept forming a new bond with the closest female witch of royal blood, or one strong enough to take the awesome power of the land into their body-

 _Kline-bastard had a little sister…_

 _And maternal lines were oh so adored in witch communities._

 _Damnit!_ Would she be strong enough? Did Kline's family think so? Did they believe in her enough to risk the possible consequences if the girl- or more accurately _woman_ now surely- _wasn't_?

"There is not going to be a war." The Headmaster barked bringing Clawstorm out of her terrifying revelation with a sharp stab through her veins as she shifted focus. "Not while I still have a say in things!"

"Whatever comforts you Headmaster Grimm. I still expect you to encourage placement into the classes I requested for my child. Good day." And with that the mirror hung up.

"Three!" The man muttered in disgust, squeezing her shoulders slightly before turning the witch around so that she could face him, concern rolling off of his larger mass in waves. "Listen to me Miss Shards, from now on you do not have to risk your life in the name of anything or take any classes that you do not want to. I have the power to grant refugee and asylum status to any student under my care. I know how much your country and the ruling family means to you but I think that even Rav- Miss Queen would agree with me in that should you choose to, you do not have to sacrifice yourself to make a difference in this conflict okay? We won't let war happen and you do not have to go out and risk your life for anything." The Headmaster's voice was gentle and comforting.

Clawstorm blinked Mira's eyelids several times this was a far different Headmaster than what she was used to dealing with. "Er… P-pardon my question Lord Headmaster Grimm but… why would you offer such a thing? It is not required of you to do so. I understand that I broke school rules and I accept responsibility for my actions… but um… again forgive me but why do you care so much what happens to me? I am technically not a fairytale character."

"But you are my student and therefore professionally I have an obligation to see after your wellbeing, and personally I do not want to see anybody as young and as bright as you be used as a mere expendable pawn in somebody else's war." He tells her truthfully. "In the end I do recognize that this is ultimately your choice as to whether you end up going off to join the witch army in combat but for now I just want you to know that you have options and that you have people here who do care about you and want to see you safe."

Mira's expression of puzzlement made the older man sigh. "Just think about it alright? Now do you have somebody you know who can redress those bandages or should you go see the nurse?"

"How did you know that I haven't redressed my wounds yet Lord Headmaster?" The witch eyed Milton with wary suspicion, but kept her tone polite and kind.

"Your arm is bleeding through." Milton pointed out dryly.

Clawstorm made a tiny hiss when she caught sight of her arm. "I knew I should have redid that ripped stitch before I came here."

"You should have _redid_?" The Headmaster eyed the girl critically. "As in you were going to stitch _yourself_ up? …Miss Shards did you not go to the nurse's office at all after you got hurt the first time?"

"Of course I visited the nurse's office, Miss Blondie made certain to ensure that I did… despite my polite protests, but I tripped and fell earlier today and planned to redo this one measly stitch after we were finished." Mira blinked innocently, Clawstorm mentally kicking herself for such a rookie slip-up. Clawstorm had been determined to not let a few scrapes get in the way of going back to her normal life, and admittedly climbing that tree was probably not the best of ideas but she had been asked to go visit the Headmaster's office after lunch and she needed to clear her mind (and avoid a certain love-struck blond spectacle wearing boy who had been hovering over her for the past week, offering to do everything for her and making her feel like a pedophile because he was her _daughter's age_ good gods! And…she really hated trips to the doctor okay?). "The mirror always stressed the importance of a warrior's ability to patch up minor wounds so that they could go back to battle and properly fight beside their comrades for the honor of victory or a honorable death of fighting to the last pulse of the heart."

"…Go see the nurse Miss Shards- _and don't think that I won't check to make sure that you do go_ \- after that you are excused for the rest of the day to get some sleep and then I need you to make twenty examples of those knot charms you've been known to make in class to turn into Queen Charming by sometime next week." The Headmaster scrunched his face up as if pained, the thought of the girl threading a needle and string through her own arm made him cringe on the inside.

"Knot charms sir?" Mira asked in confusion. That didn't sound much like a punishment.

"You heard right Miss Shards." The man walked away to retrieve a paper off of his desk before returning to hand the list to the witch. "These types of charms if you can, I was going to discuss this punishment option to your parent as a part of your punishment, however I can now see that I will have to take the elective responsibility of such by myself, given your physical condition and your parent's… _interesting_ child-rearing practices… I cannot in good conscious order you to complete the normal routes of detention so you will be doing this and tasks like this instead for the next month and a half. Am I understood?"

"Yes sir?" Mira stared down at the list for a moment (charm to promote healing, charm to promote good night's sleep, charm for warmth during winter… all of these Clawstorm could do with her eyes closed and sound asleep after a night of heavy drinking) before wandering out the door.

Well that was weird.

Clawstorm stopped a few feet into the hallway, suddenly realizing why her friend had decided to go the whole I-am-crazy-parent-who-adopted-a-kid-soley-to-turn-her-into-a-witch-soldier route.

She was going to have some stern words with her scheming band of friends about their sudden attempts to adore her father to the Mira Shards persona. Really she knew that their hearts were in the right place but she had no desire to suddenly acquire a father figure in her life. Ever. _Thank-you-very-much-but-hell-no-thank-you_!

XXX

"Three!" The Headmaster grumbled distastefully at the closed door as he settled down at his desk. He was certain that when Clawstorm had sacrificed her name and freedom to ensure the safety of her kingdom it was to prevent the need for her people to prepare their children for war.

He may not have been the best father in the world to the woman, not by a long shot, but blood relation or no he owed to help the woman with her cause when she was currently unable to. And it was his responsibility as a Grimm to ensure peace continue on and that witches like Mira Shards never have to worry about seeing combat so young into their lives.

The man inhaled deeply, a pang of worry snaking it's way inside his gut when he thought about his estranged daughter and how worried it made him that he had not a clue as to where she was or if she was safe. He had seen with his own eyes how bad of a beating she had taken when she had battled with ex-new guy, and he did not think that being the dreaded Evil Queen, poisoner of worlds, would not have left her with very many allies that would be willing to take her in to heal if she would have stayed in this dimension instead of going back to the monster realm.

Which is what he instinctively knew what she would have done, that she would have found a way to stay here where she could keep an eye on matters… it would be what he would do in her situation and despite not liking him very much at all Elenore had wistfully confessed that he shared more personality traits with their daughter than what Clawstorm was ever going to be comfortable with.

He would have been worried for her even if they were not related, he knew this, not that Clawstorm would ever believe him of course, however even he could not deny the clawing intensity at his chest that continued to remind him that it was his flesh and blood that was out in who knows where injured and frightened and that he had missed out on so much while she had been growing up. He felt the loss of his chance at being a father and being happy with Elenore as his wife keenly, the distinct and worrying possibility that one wrong turn could end up with him losing Clawstorm completely to the dangers that were surrounding her in this world made his worry worse.

With another deep breath he picked up the copy of his daughter's published thesis and chuckled soberly.

His little girl was a genius along with being a wily little thing, managing to scare away the bad guys by convincing everyone that she was the scariest creature in existence? It was foolish but she had done it so well! He had trouble understanding half the things that she had wrote about, it all going completely over his head, but he understood enough to know that she was accomplished despite all the obstacles thrown at her and that just made him insanely proud in a way that he had long thought that he had missed his chance to be proud of his child's achievements. He had the ridiculous urge to brag about it to anybody that would listen…

But of course he couldn't, it would hinder more than it would help to let everybody know that Clawstorm had been leading a double life as a champion of doing good let alone have everybody know that he was her father (as much as it pained him to admit, she was a grown woman who had expressed intense disapproval of him being related to her at all and thrice curse the damn enemy for making it too risky to simply announce that Raven Queen was his granddaughter and blood heir…).

…But maybe it wouldn't hurt so much to acknowledge Clawstorm's accomplishments in her attempts to protect her kingdom…

With a contemplative hum Milton put down his daughter's thesis and surveyed the monetary accounts that Raven had forwarded to him, and the official (and some unofficial) papers on the charities that she had been donating funds to, making a note to himself to speak with Miss White as soon as possible to both establish her motives to go to Wonderland last week and to figure out just what sort of "issues" that she had been getting from home that would warrant her questioning her destiny.

XXX

"Her body's been preserved in there? For all of these centuries?" Kline asked wide-eyed at the sight before him, the shock of what he was seeing was enough to distract him from the pain of his injuries and this strange, insistent sharp prickling feeling in his veins that felt almost at though his very blood were trying to burrow outwards towards the surface of his skin.

Kline was confined to a wheelchair as Tomak dotingly pushed his son around a large sterile empty room with sturdy metal walls, large computer consoles, and other such delicate instruments surrounded a platform which held what looked like some sort of tree that had been artificially mutated to where it's white trunk had separated to create an intricate weave of barky vines, the bared roots of the tree were oddly burnt and dead which made the existence of the large brightly glowing leaves of the top parts of the vine-branches all the odder.

Nestled in the heart of the trunk lay a man-sized glowing amber gem, the vines that used to hide the jewel being held back with sturdy metal cables strapped around the trunk of the tree until the treasure inside was laid out in the open, the purple glow from the leaves and the warm amber glow from the gem cast interesting plays of light and shadows around the space.

It was an odd sight to be seen in such an industrial environment to be sure, and it would have been a rather pretty sight to behold… save for one tiny detail…

"Her body and her power have been preserved into the amber." Tomak explained. "When she had tried to break up the original Snow White's wedding party the dwarves managed to capture her long enough to strap magical hot iron shoes to her feet and had attempted to force her to dance as entertainment for the newlywed couple, the shoes were supposed to have both contained her power and burned her from the marrow out for a slow and fantastic spectacle of an execution. However, and we are still unsure as to how she was able to do this, she had been able to overcome the pain and the iron's power to the point where the magic spells had somehow twisted into something different. This is the end result."

The two men grew respectfully silent for a few brief moments, gazing pityingly at the body preserved inside the amber rock, the woman's corpse forever frozen in time, back arched, head thrown back, mouth open wide enough to see the sharp fangs some witches were still born with in an eternal scream of agony, her legs contorted as if trying to escape her own burnt feet which were still entrapped in the long cooled iron shoes, her once beautiful clothing ripped and shredded to the point where it was just a few scraps of rags clinging to her thin frame.

"A true example of the power of the Queen clan." Kline murmured in awe and sorrow. "How the mighty do fall…"

"It is only the weak that fall my boy." Tomak spoke gravely. "You can have all the power in the world but without the resolve and the will to back that power all of it will be for naught. Take her fate as a warning my boy, she had everything within her grasp and yet all it took was an obsession over a pathetic little maiden and look at where that has brought her. In order for a new change to arrive to this world and for our family to remain at the top when the dust settles you must keep your faith and never let it waiver."

"All the glory for my dear family and my beloved fair little sister, Clementine." Kline whispered in reverence.

"I shall never forget nor stray from that." The younger man promised, just as he had sworn his loyalty many times before, beginning on the day of his sister's birth, and how he would continue to breath his undying loyalty until his last gasping breaths.

XXX

 _Several weeks later…_

Raven was having the time of her life.

Yes the change in scenery was something to get used to, yes the classes were demanding, and yes being one of the youngest brides in the school did offer her some raised brows and wide-eyed looks but it was still… oh she felt a little guilty for thinking it but she felt far more at home here than she had ever been back in Ever After High.

It felt so freeing to be amongst her own kind and to be so openly witchy without fear of being singled out completely for her heritage and race, she had so many cousins here that even if somebody did say something there was always a cousin or someone sympathetic to Raven's plight to _actually stand up for her_ , it was no longer just Raven, basically alone to stand up to the bullies and the cruel whispers (sure the Rebels did follow her example but very few actually verbally stood up for her personally when the chips were down), and even though the classes were challenging it was a fun sort of challenging that left her wanting to learn more, and things were so much better now that she was known as Faybelle's wife and the granddaughter to one of the most favored professors on campus because new people would want to include her for study groups and they were usually all so friendly in ways that was completely new to Raven and she could even bring Nevermore to a few of her classes that were familiar friendly!

Raven still missed her old school, she really did, but she could not help but reluctantly admit that this was better for her. More healthy in ways that made her wonder what it would have been like if her family had stayed intact and the heavy weight of people's expectations for her to be the manifestation of an non-existent ideal, if this witch hunting terrorist group never existed. She still could not fathom what it would have been like if her grandmother and the Headmaster (who was her grandfather, _good gods_ …) had worked things out long before her mother was born but… having her mother there, in her life, going out of her way to prove just how ludicrous all of those hurtful expectations of what an Evil Queen should be were just sooo over rated and outdated… that… that might have helped with a lot of things… Raven would've been happier at the very least.

Apple had seemed to sense this too, that Raven was far more comfortable and happy here than back at Ever After, by the look on Apple's face this fact did sting the princess quite a bit, mostly because, as Faybelle had revealed, Apple now understood why Raven acted so rebellious and why being classified as evil's spawn had hurt so much, Apple felt incredibly guilty for helping to make what was supposed to be a fairytale school experience into more of a political chore that had ultimately driven Raven away.

But Raven was happy now and that in turn seemed to soften the blows to Apple's conscience, which was good because Apple really needed to start finding things to be more happy about and draw her focus away from the whole mess at hand with her parents, Raven's mother, and the political climate.

Oddly enough both Faybelle and Apple were… almost getting along these days.

Which was weird.

And highly disturbing especially when the two of them decided to ban together and essentially flirt shamelessly at her whenever the three of them were alone, which was interesting… but Raven didn't exactly have the luxury right now to figure out her feelings about it.

Maddie and Kitty just howled in laughter last time they visited (which was more often than when Apple and Faybelle were able to visit because Wonderland only had school for one day in a year) and Raven had voiced he bemusement over it all. And Charlotte (who she had bonded with rather quickly) just made snarky jokes over Raven having to deal with a wife and a concubine, and how nice it was that they were all one big happy family.

And Raven was still unsure whether or not they would stay "a big happy family" once everything was said and done, despite the Evil Fairy's not-so-subtle-hints towards birthing heirs, or how she felt about the possibility. There was simply not enough time to dedicate the brainpower towards such a thing!

But life was slowly improving from what it had been a little while ago, she was being treated like an actual person and not a thing that should be put down or used to her own personal disadvantage, she and Apple were on better ground now that the princess was not attempting to force her to become the Evil Queen, Raven and Faybelle were getting along rather well in their marriage, Maddie was able to go back home to Wonderland and formally announce that she and Kitty were engaged, her mother was not actually evil, she now knew who her grandfather was, and she was now able to focus her studies onto topics that actually interested her.

So win-win for the most part! …Now if only they could find a way to eliminate the threat across the border to her homelands and save the lives of a whole bunch of trapped citizens and witches alike that would be _fabulous_. Peachy even. Raven never would have suspected that she would ever get a shot at having some semblance of a truly happy home life, or a happy life for that matter, ever again, even though she fought for it, dreamed of it, she always kept in mind of all the complications that she'd have to sort out and of all the people who genuinely went out of their way to try to make her unhappy and just planned on fighting as much as she could until she just needed to hide away, the last of the Queen line mysteriously disappearing into the night, never to be seen or heard from ever again. No one suspecting that the strange blonde woman, cousin to the great Good King, was more _familiar_ than anybody would have even hoped to realize.

Things were scary right now, but they were obscenely brighter than what they could have been.

At the very least she got to keep her identity and her family, which was more than she ever could hope for in the past.


	43. Chapter 43

A/n: I know that some of you were confused as to why I brought in Snow White and her weird feelings towards her former assigned villain into this story but I assure you that it will all make a whole lot more sense in the next few chapters because things are about to get real and I need Snow white to be on the front lines in order to get things moving!

XXX

The old man sat in the center of the chaos, young children chasing each other, some adults were chasing the children to keep them out of trouble, babies both cried and babbled happily, the adults who weren't chasing or watching over the children talked while the teenagers leaned against things and attempted to look too cool to be associated with the others.

The old man was smiling to himself, self-satisfied and smug in the center of the chaos of so many people who bore a striking resemblance to him all around him and living their lives.

"So that's what a large witch family looks like." Raven blinked at the family in question who were across the street from the little outdoor café that she and the Headmas- _her grandfather_ Milton Grimm were sitting at.

"How can he possibly just sit there all happy with all that noise around him?" Milton wondered trying to stamp down the swell of jealousy and regret at he looked at the happy man that could have very well have been him in a few years time if only…

"It kind of reminds me of move-in day and freshman orientation at the school." Raven hummed giving her grandfather a sidelong smile that almost instantly made Milton feel a little better.

She was here now, his granddaughter was alive, healthy, and safe, a blessing he was more than happy about… even though she now lived so far away from the school he had more control over.

"I see that your in-laws are wasting no time with making it abundantly clear that despite your relation to me and therefore your right to regain your honor through the family name of Grimm that they still intend to keep you." Milton sighed, gesturing to the new henna markings dancing and webbing up the sides of the girl's neck and face.

"They'd like to complete what has been started." Raven explained with an apologetic shrug. "And all the benefits of keeping me as a bride to them does help."

 _I'll bet_ , Milton thought darkly mentally assessing the net worth of not only the Queen lands and territories but also that of the Good King's. "So one more ritual to go?" He asks lightly.

Raven nodded. "One more ritual for the contract to be complete, then I have the freedom to choose, after an acceptable period of time, when I would like to sever my contract and get on with my life and ascend to the throne."

"Good." Milton states and he means it.

"How have things been from your point of view at the school since I left?" Raven asks, her expression both knowing and curious.

"Well if we are both completely honest you know more about what is going on than I do, from my understanding the students have adapted well to some of them being freed from their fairytale curses and aside from Legend the dragon sneaking out of the stables for the past few days everything is back to normal." Milton smiled kindly not expecting any potential information towards what was _really_ going on in his school from the girl but hoping that he could get a _slight hint_ indicating whether or not he _should_ worry about anything.

"Well given the fact that Legend is expecting to deliver her clutch any day now it's only to be expected that she'll be this restless." Raven informed carefully, almost acting as if she were commenting on some mundane thing instead of something significantly more important. "I have been told that Mira, Cupid, and Blondie caught Legend heating up some boulders with her fire and then curling up on the hot stone, Mira's apparently quite the dragon expert and she worries that a good number of the chicks may be born a little hot under the collar and more difficult to control because of the extra heat …What do you call them in Ever After? … _Dark Dragons_?"

"Ah." Milton blinked, well that cleared that up. "I'll request that the staff in charge of beast and biology-related classes take the time to inform the students that just because some of the new clutch may be darker and more temperamental, that does not immediately mean that they are evil."

Raven appears to take a relieved breath before sitting back slightly, letting a momentary lapse in conversation stretch slightly, the sounds of life in the downtown district washing over them.

"I spoke to Miss White recently." Milton began carefully.

Raven nodded looking just as weary as her grandfather. "I was informed."

Milton looked off to the side. "…I don't want to rock the boat but… as difficult as this is going to be I am going to have to ask…"

"It's fine, now that you know I think that I am allowed to say to you that Apple has been having difficulties with her parents." Raven spoke lightly despite the heavy set of her shoulders.

"Enough that she is questioning her destiny?" Milton asked kindly,praying to avoid a fight.

"Enough that she is questioning everything about herself and life in general." Raven huffed weakly. "She's a lot stronger than what I would have been in that situation but I still… worry."

"…She didn't say very much." Milton began with care. "But she did get rather upset and she did briefly mention something rather… odd, I don't think that she knows that I picked up on it but when she swore that her parents were to blame for everything going on with that meteorite attack Giles checked into some things. The Wacko clan _never_ had the resources nor the manpower to _invent_ let alone _create_ that war machine you are so afraid of."

Raven sighed tiredly, looking around her casually just in case she needed to spy whether or not someone was listening in. Apple in an unusual (for these days at least) show of trust towards Raven's grandfather insisted that they should secretly let a third-person who could be discrete enough in on this particular aspect of the bigger issue at hand in order to have a bit of backup hidden up their sleeves "just in case" Raven was uneasy about Apple feeling as though she needed to go behind her parent's backs like this but at the same time they weren't _her_ parents and the fact that they did contribute majorly to her own family being turned upside-down all due to a grudge that they had carried against her mother from high school… yeah. Raven was going to get as much insurance as she could possibly get against those guys so… no regrets here. "My mother knew that if these same… suspicions that you are having came out that there would be calls for war against Ever After, regardless of whether or not the queen and king actually knowing what they may or may not have allowed to happen all because they didn't see fit to check into what the known enemies to our lands were cooking up. That and my mother feared what repercussions would transpire to the White royal family if the public ever found out about the scandal."

"…So they did…?" Milton gestured vaguely. "On purpose? Maliciously?"

"They thought that they were lending out their experts and raw materials to create a top secret _railway_ that was faster, safer, and something that they could have used to propaganda themselves as the better kingdom where the Queen lands were seemingly doing nothing to help our struggling neighbors." Raven corrected before her grandfather got the terribly wrong idea about everything. Sure their propaganda attempt was malicious but they had not actually intended to put thousands of lives at risk or start a war. "They didn't know, didn't _care_ to check, until it was too late to discover that they had been conned. My mother covered it up to protect everyone from war, and yet Apple still found out and now she is furious with them."

"Well it was rather irresponsible of them." Milton's tone was light but the gleam in his eye suggested that it was taking everything he had just to stay this calm and polite.

"I have their confession on Apple's phone, she's recording all of their conversations with her in case she needs to use anything against them, evidence of them being in possession of the blueprints, and Apple has threatened to abdicate the throne if they so much as blink out of line or refuse to cooperate." Raven assured quietly. " _They aren't getting away with anything_ and as a result we have all of their resources at our disposal if something does happen, but I feel as though this will only last as long as everyone keeps _silent_."

"Then why tell me?" Milton asks, genuinely confused.

"Backup." Raven states seriously. "They do appear to be sincere in their regret towards the lives lost and the state that they had left my family in without a finger lifted for aid or any act of kindness… however if they step out of line and I am not in a position to do anything about it I need someone neutral who is not afraid to remind them of just how serious this all is and how much trouble that they are actually in."

"Gladly." A half-fond half-protectively feral look crossing his features, he was supposed to be the ever neutral an wise Grimm who watched over the growing youth to many rulers to fairytale realms so he wasn't going to get very many chances to express his real feelings on the issue of Snow White and what she had done to his daughter, but this would have to do.

For now at least.

"When this is all over, and we will win, I will do whatever I can to ensure this, if you had the choice would you prefer to continue on with your higher education after you pass through the basic years?" Milton asked, quickly going on to lighter subjects.

Raven sighed. "I'd like to but most likely I'd have to start taking on kingdom duties and being prepped to take over the throne as soon as possible, if I survive everything going on now, it may be needed to have me set aside my personal interests until everything has calmed down enough for me to pick them back up part time."

"Plenty of heirs to the throne have gone on to explore their scholarly interests, you've got plenty of help from the people around you, if you truly enjoy your chosen academic pursuit of magical-herbatology then you should continue on with what makes you happy." Milton assured, taking a careful sip of his espresso.

"My grandmother told me the same thing." Raven narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "Have you two been talking to each other?"

"We may have… formed a truce in order to better look after our one and only granddaughter." Milton admitted vaguely.

"And how has that been working out?" Raven asked.

"Rather well so far." Milton smiled softly.

"I'm glad." Raven stated honestly.

"So am I." Milton stated, just as honest.

"Do you…?" Raven bit her lip. "Do you guys know what you're going to do about mom?" The witch asked nervously.

Milton chuckled. "We've done a few things to help her out… wherever she currently is. She and many others might not completely appreciate it but given the evidence of her innocence we'll be able to spin things to the fairytale realms' benefit. Well… hopefully to everyone's benefit, you mother was always a wild card let me tell you…"

XXX

"The Cheshire tribe has declared you as their foreign sister, you have also been grandfathered in as an official Wonderlandian citizen thanks to the fact that your daughter is their adopted kin." Simone informed in amusement. "Since your curse turned out to be not a curse at all but a harmless spell for a party trick."

" _What?_ " Clawstorm exclaimed, clutching her phone in a death grip. From the witch's (mostly unused) bed Blondie perked her head up from her homework in interest.

"Well we couldn't make out much of the full explanation from what passes as a news station in Wonderland- even though it was an Ever After standard speaking channel-, but apparently between The Queen of Hearts publically announcing your innocence to supposed past mass genocide crimes, your courageous sacrifice of your honored name to protect your family from fugitives hiding in Wonderland, and demonstrating an estimated small amount of what you are truly capable of with your power just to scare off the mercenaries who are after the Queen land's royal family-"

"I still _cursed the place_ Simone! It still counts as a curse if people are terrified of it, and all the other worlds were only supposed to be cursed for a few weeks not years!" Clawstorm moaned.

"Which had been detailed in your written confession and is currently being looked into by authorities and experts, it's mostly all hush right now of course, but from what I've overheard from Giles speaking to people is that they think that somebody definitely attempted to prolong your work to the worlds aside from Wonderland." Bad wolf piped up.

"Wha- why would anybody want to prolong a bloody ominous cloud of doom over a world's sky?" Clawstorm griped. "It had to be a mistake on my part, nobody is that-"

"The jabberwocky have already taken responsibility, they said that they were sorry about the other worlds but they couldn't figure out how to affect Wonderland by itself due to the structure of your spell being so well connected to each part of itself." The hooded woman interrupted.

Clawstorm smacked a hand to her head and muttered passionate swear words under her breath.

"Kline-bastard has now been crowned the new greatest evil criminal wanted by all the known Fairytale worlds." Simone interrupted. "Looks like somebody stole your title for the evilest witch in existence."

"Well he can keep the damn title!" The witch snapped. "But seriously what the frick is going on? Kline being labeled as the slimy traitor he is aside; there is no way that the other realms would allow such leniency for a foul being such as I, where is the catch?"

"You aren't foul." Simone chastises with a snort. "And don't you dare argue back, I've lived with you for four school years and have seen you cuddle up to that plush animal and trip around with those fuzzy pink slippers in the dorm because they were the most comfortable you could find in the shops. And on more pressing topic there has been suggestions that you would be put to work in the Wonderland coliseums."

Blondie utters a sound of alarm.

"That's hardly a punishment for someone who creates golems, my creations would be doing the majority of the fighting and the locals are hardly likely to kill off or injure someone who can give them a good show." Clawstorm states to both assure Blondie and to poke holes into the logic of this sorry excuse for a punishment.

"Most realms are ignorant to the customs of Wonderlandian culture…" The hooded woman trailed off.

"And for the people within Wonderland?" Clawstorm demanded not letting the subject drop for an instant. "There is no way that there isn't some major controversy going on over there from this insane decree."

"I have no doubt that there is… but then again it would all be spoken in riddlish and you do have to consider that it _is_ … well Wonderland that we are talking about here, it's very likely that you've somehow managed to endear yourself to the general populace in some manner or another..." Simone pursed her lips for a moment. "You'd know more about it than we would little miss scholar that you are."

"…I suppose that is something that I shouldn't be as concerned about as how the hell those scaly colossal vamped up versions of really scary dragons high-jacked my own spell! I really should have at least attempted to figure out a way to Wonderland or one of the other worlds sooner just for the mere sake of figuring out what went wrong…" The witch grumbled, her mind racing for any possible way that the jabberwocky had been able to do anything to a spell that had been bound to her _blood_ and therefore her _DNA_ sequence signature.

"Hold it right there missy!" Simone ordered sternly. "You and I both know that there was literally nothing that you could have done once that quarantine came up, you didn't know about the Well of Wonder, you could not count on the Grimm Brothers to do anything useful, and as terrible as all those years of being separated from the other worlds may have been, in the terrible end it actually did help to stop a grand-scale war, you scared the enemy into not only shrinking their allies and numbers but also halting their plans for years. You need to remember that Clawstorm; no innocent lives were lost as a result of your actions, inconvenienced and frightened beyond all heck perhaps… but in the end you did protect them."

"Yes but that does not excuse me of anything." Clawstorm pointed out. "I crossed a line Simone, and the scary thing is that there is literally nothing holding me back from going as far as it takes to protect the people I love. No laws or rules or sense of morals would hinder me if I were pushed far enough, hell I even _killed a man_! Sure he was going to kill both Sleeping Beauty and myself first out of some sort of jealous fit, but the fact still remains that despite how horrible I felt afterwards I still did not regret it, not nearly as close as I regret having to instill terror into the hearts of so many through my curse. Don't get me wrong, on a survival and on a friendship level I am overjoyed that you guys stayed my friends and allies all throughout this mess but the fact still remains that I'm dangerous, like a bad kind of dangerous, how can anything I've done so far be justified if I'm just a loaded gun whose safety has been taken off, how can you possibly feel safe in saying that I should get a lighter judgment placed upon me when deep down when pushed just right there is a _real_ _Evil Queen_ that is just as ruthless and horrible as all the past literature on me states that I am?"

"Because even though that person you just described may not be what the fairytale worlds want but it is exactly the type of person that we need to be free to run around and do all those horrible things so that the enemy does not succeed in ripping everything that everyone, your family included, holds dear away from them… that and we don't know what a gun is…" Simone pointed out gently. "You have great power residing within you my friend and whether you believe it or not you do have enough responsibility and conscious to wield it."

"You got that directly from a comic book I lent you from the monster dimension." Clawstorm accused, aware of Blondie's footsteps as the girl drew near.

"Those comics _did_ have some good points." Simone pointed out cheerfully. "And you'd be able to pull off the cheeky masked vigilante quite well, even though those revealing long underwear things that those characters wear are completely ridiculous!"

"If you find that crude I should introduce you to the latest runway fashions, that much skin ought 'a show you a thing or two about what revealing clothing actually looks like!" The witch snipped.

"Hey, do you think that they'd let you reserve seats for friends if you ever do manage to get captured and sentenced in Wonderland?" Simone wondered.

Clawstorm rolled her eyes. "Goodbye Simone." She drawled before hanging up.

"She's right you know." Blondie piped up. "You did stop a bad situation from getting worse."

"At great cost." The witch sighed brushing the Mira-persona's bright red hair behind one ear before turning around to face the reporter. "Even in a world filled with fairytale magic and dangerous beasts with teeth wandering about what I did was-"

"Cruel and harsh but necessary." Blondie finished. "And now you don't have to worry as much about doing all of this on your own because there is a whole network of people and kingdoms who will fight to keep these people from winning. It's not going to be easy but with so many people pooling their resources we have a shot in making things right again."

"Or at least more stable." The witch hummed pacing slightly. "I know that I have most of the pieces towards just what is going on with this craziness but I'm missing some key crucial information that will make everything click. Tomak may be the type to have illusions of grandeur and the whole odd thing about him having a destiny towards divine right but there has to be an overwhelmingly good reason for him to have such bravery to stick towards this end game of his for… what? Decades? Maybe even longer!"

Blondie blinked. "Divine right?" She asked.

"Hmm? Oh, right they don't teach that kind of thing here. Divine right is essentially the belief that an individual has been given the right to rule over people and land however they see fit by their gods or whatever divine entities that they believe in. Historically the common people have no say in how the kingdom is run and they can't have a revolution to change that for fear that if they do off the ruling family then the gods and the land itself will turn on them." The witch coughed guiltily when the blonde pulled a face.

"So kind of like how the nobility of those four small kingdoms think that they have the right to do what they do because they were born in the upper class." There was a slightly bitter note to Blondie's tone, one that Clawstorm knew had a lot to do with the distinct possibility that the girl's non-royalty heritage being thrown into her face more than once despite being a sympathizer to the Royal faction's cause.

"Except that most of the few hundred common people who are trapped there are not buying it and would have rebelled ages ago if it weren't for the mercenaries." Clawstorm idly toyed with a stray thread on Mira's dress. "And even though there are royal families who have _direct_ ties to their lands, it's a kind symbiotic relationship that is not to be taken lightly, if they are bad rulers then it'll show up immediately in the lands and the common people are perfectly capable of just simply capturing the ruling family and imprisoning them until they can find someone strong enough to take the shock of having the power of the water, land, and sometimes even the sky itself flow into them. In these type of families it is imperative that the ruling family work to protect and provide for their realm just as much as the realm protects and provides for them."

"Is your kingdom like that?" Blondie asked suddenly very curious.

The witch sighed. "It's not a well known secret, but I do suspect that Tomak, who is from a wealthy family but is not a noble or a ruler himself, knows this and that is why he wants to kill us off, the Queen lands are deeply tied to the current three generations of the Queen family, which right now is just my mother, my daughter, and myself, if we are all killed off the land will go into such a shock that it'll try to latch onto a new caretaker, and since Tomak and his son have proven themselves to be uncaring towards how many have to die in order, I suspect, to take over a lot of entities from witches, fairies, even a human with unusual magical potential could all be put at risk of being shattered apart by the land's need to find just the right caretaker for it before Tomak manages to install his own champion who is strong enough to handle the will of the land on their own."

Blondie wrinkled her nose. "I only saw that Kline guy for a few seconds but I already know that I rather not see him or his father on the Queen kingdom's throne."

Clawstorm shook her disguised head. "Neither of them would be on the throne their both fully male, the earth won't accept anything without a womb to provide future offspring for it's survival, but Tomak does have an illegitimate daughter hidden away, not much is known about her since she hasn't been seen in public since she was a tiny child, but what is known is that she was pretty powerful for a witchling who had as of yet come into her adult powers, it is said, and I know this from personal experience, that she could just walk into a room and the entire ministry of witches in the whole council building could feel her power in the air to the point to where the rest of their senses were blocked the scent of her magic was so strong."

"You knew her." Blondie said knowingly.

"…She was my childhood friend, her name was Clementine. Mom had a lot of business to deal with at the grand council so she and I would play at the daycare while Kline used to glower at me from a far corner. Everyone had thought that Kline was the son of a maid who worked at the council building, and that Clementine's parents hired that same maid to take care of her while they were overseas, nobody suspected them of being Tomak's children…" Clawstorm trailed off lost in memories of her early childhood. "Then one day Clementine ceased to attend daycare and Kline was reportedly sent off to boarding school and that was that. She's younger than me but even so by now she'll be a formidable young woman who has to be even more powerful than her brother… I'm not looking forward to having to deal with her without at least an army of golems and a lot of luck on my side…"

"So if he just wants to take over the Queen kingdom then why the witch hunters? Why those four secluded kingdoms? Why the war machine? And why try to start a war all across the fairytale worlds?" Blondie asked utterly baffled.

"I don't know but whatever his end game may be it definitely has to do with his family gaining power and that it is something that he is willing to wait for and work on for however long it takes before he's succeeded, and on top of that there is the issue as to what could possibly make him believe that he can get away with all of this? What is giving him such assurance that he has gained this kind of gall to even attempt such atrocities? Chief I'm confident that if we can figure out this then the rest of our questions will be answered as well." Clawstorm stated confidently. "…Though the issue now is how we are to get this information… all things considered…"

"They'll slip up." Blondie nodded knowingly. "You've got them on the run and backed into a corner, and I'll bet my favorite porridge that they'll be doing something soon to attempt to get some traction back now that Kline-guy has been exposed and sooner or later they'll run the risk of somebody finding out his connection to councilman Tomak."

"Yes but it's the how they will go about their new plan of attack that worries me." Clawstorm stated biting her lip.

"By the way, what is a gun?" Blondie asked.

XXX

"It was her! I know it was! There is no mistaking it Charming, I've studied all of the school news feeds with her in them and my sources have discovered that she's escaped her prison! What better way to hide from the Grimm Brothers than to hide right under their noses in plain sight! Even Anton couldn't deny that she shares a bunch of similarities with her, it has to be her!" Snow White declared excitedly to the two worried men in front of her.

"I'm not doubting you Snow, but both Anton and myself are rather worried about your personal safety in regards to this plan of yours, given the current storm that is brewing between the Queen witches and those lunatics and the fact that sweet little Raven had warned us that these same lunatics may try their hand at implicating one of us in something nefarious in order to force the war that they need in order to succeed in whatever they are planning."

Snow White drew herself up to her full height and smiled reassuringly. "That is why I am sending her advanced warning of my arrival through a secure means as well as bringing an extra force of dwarves to accompany me to and from the school, if anything happens I know that my forces and the great Evil Queen herself will ensure that our foes do not succeed in anything should they be foolish enough to try anything against me. If anything goes wrong she will come for me, I know she will." The queen stated with overwhelming confidence.

Anton cleared his throat politely. "My lady if I may be so bold as to ask; why are you going to the school in order to attempt to see the Honorable Lady Evil Queen of the Night and Shadow now? Is it because of the recent evidence of her innocence?" The warlock spoke calmly and lightly attempting to do his very best not to fidget, Prince Charmin's pale hand entwined with his richly dark one in support.

"…That… is one of the reasons why I want so desperately to go to her." Snow White admitted her face lightly flushing pink. "I also desire to confirm a suspicion of mine as to the… well I suppose that it sounds a bit odd but I have my doubts towards the Evil Queen's destiny… in fact I am beginning to suspect that… maybe being the Evil Queen was never her true destiny in the first place."

"Well she never did sign the Book…" Prince Charming murmured uneasily.

"And she designed the prince of my dreams to be the male version of herself. Just think about it Charming; she was the prince of my dreams, she ensured that my high school experience was the best years of my life, she knew that I had wanted you to be my prince so she ensured that it would be so, she gave us the perfect storybook fairytale we could ask for, after Apple was born she sent Anton over for you to discover, and she's been protecting us from dastardly schemes from those horrible people!" Snow White listed out taking a shaky breath when she was done. "She hasn't been acting like a true Evil Queen, she's put on the persona of one for everybody else's sake but when you look at it all in a different light you can see that all of her efforts are far too noble and not villain-like at all, which only tells me that maybe, I can't prove anything though, that just maybe if she had signed the Book for real instead of faking it, or had used the right poison that would gift me my actual true love… just maybe it would have become evident that she… has a completely different destiny entirely."

The two men blinked in confusion.

"What are you hinting at Snow?" Prince Charming asked completely lost.

"…I… forgive me for saying this but I… suspect that she may be my prince… the one that I was _supposed_ to end up with." Snow White crossed her arms. "I understand the risks and I understand that I'm the last person that she will want to see and that she may want nothing to do with me but… we can help her, at the very least we can extend to her the option of having somewhere safe to hide, being Mira Shards is all well and good but it is quit the risk to take for her, she may despise me but even she would have to admit that hiding out in our summer palace would be a safer option should she choose it."

Two sets of raised eyebrows. "My lady… you believe that her dark majesty is your prince?" Anton asked his voice pitched a little high.

"Or the closest thing that I'll actually get to a prince, no offense meant Charming." Snow White coughed delicately.

"None taken." Said the blond man still utterly confused, his mind reeling.

 _Sometimes I really wonder about the integrity of her sanity…_

XXX

"So she's sending contractors out to rebuild the school's Dragon Games Arena practically overnight?" Kline walked gingerly over to stand beside his father in front of the large mirror-screen showcasing their latest intelligence on the Ever After royal family. "A rather excessive display of her power to gain the student's parents good graces…"

"And perhaps it is the break we need so desperately right now. How have you healing treatments gone? I can see that you no longer need use of the cane or chair." The elder observed with a note of approval. "Did our dear Clementine's power serve you well?"

"She has been beyond kind to me using her powers like this, willing to use them for me." The younger man nods with a guiltily dreamy sigh. "My bones will still be tender for a while yet but if the need arises-"

Tomak held up a hand for silence. "I know that you are willing to sacrifice yourself for her, for our cause and as pleased as I am that you are so committed even to the littlest of tasks I feel that I'll save you away for later for when the Evil Queen is sure to come ready for battle, and besides I'd prefer it if you steered clear of our puppet's lair for a while, you seem to be awfully allergic to something there…"


	44. Chapter 44

Blondie grinned brightly at the camera. "So remember viewers; just because a dragon is darker in color does not mean that it is evil, just that they may need a little more TLC and attention than lighter colored dragons, isn't that right Mira?"

The red-haired witch opened her mouth to respond but was cut of when a dark scaled dragon chick nuzzled a ticklish spot under the witch's chin causing her to squeal and laugh cutely, the girl (woman) looking completely at home sitting in the middle of a nest of chard and fresh hay with squirming scaly dragon chicks crawling and snuggling all around and over her and Legend the mother dragon looking down at them all in the grateful exasperation of a tired new mother who had managed to find a proper sitter for her rambunctious brood.

"As you can see dear viewers an image speaks louder than words." Blondie smirked at the camera, discretely motioning to Humphrey to take a quick picture of the scene, mentally hoping that Clawstorm would consent to her Mira persona being on a few posters and merchandise to be available on the news club's mirror-net store. "There are plenty of hatchlings both light colored and dark colored who need good homes to go to so if you would please check out our school news website for applications for screening so that these little guys can go to good homes that would be awesome! Blondie Lockes out!"

"…And cut! That's a wrap people!" Cupid called out with false cheer, already putting the mirrorpad away. "Great work everybody!"

"You holding up okay?" Blondie whispered to the winged girl, the two of them walking off to the side as Mira handed a dragon to Daring and the O'Hair sisters so that she could help Humphrey take some photographs of them with the dragon chicks (the boy seemed so hopelessly besotted that he was taking every other picture of just Mira and in turn the witch was doing her utmost to make it seem as though she were completely clueless towards the boy's stuttering gushing about her hair, her smile, and other such things of that category while she proceeded to take pictures of everybody else).

"It's… going to be awkward for a while but Dexter is being super nice about it all and… well at least we still have our friendship. I mostly feel so embarrassed not picking up the fact that he's gay! I mean it was so obvious and I just refused to believe it for selfish reasons, I honestly can't believe that I made the mistake of thinking that he was in love with Raven at one point either…" Cupid trailed off her cheeks bright red in shame. "I'm sorry about insisting on a few days of the two of us not working together, at the time I asked I just-"

"Hey don't worry about it." Blondie assured sincerely. "It's a perfectly reasonable request and everyone involved totally understands! He's still willing to be your friend and you both are being really mature about it so no worries!"

Ashlynn's intervention a few weeks ago to warn Cupid that Dexter was gay unfortunately fell an hour short, the immediate Charming clan had some sort of quiet business in the Queen Lands and had decided to make a family weekend out of it, Ashlynn had seen an opportunity and asked Cupid to stop by her and Briar's dorm (Mira, Blondie, and Tiffany Muffet were out in the woods reporting on some rare cold region furry tarantula so Ashlynn couldn't ask for their help) so that they could inform her about something vey important involving Dexter, privately and without judgment.

Cupid had mistakenly thought that the boy was going to try to declare his undying feelings of love to Raven because she just so happened to be in her home kingdom for the day that the Charming family had been arriving, she wanted to warn him before he left that Raven was not only very gay but also had a sort of threesome thing going on at the time with both Apple and Faybelle.

With great care and apology (after the initial " _What are you talking about? Raven and I are just good friends why would anybody think differently and isn't she sort of in a strange time-share thing between Apple and Faybelle_?") Dexter explained that the reason why he strived to be so close to Raven was because she was a homosexual and he could identify with her because… he was one to… and he didn't dare tell anybody because Charming princes didn't get as much leeway traditionally with that sort of thing and… he (or more specifically Sparrow but Dexter didn't feel safe volunteering that information just yet) kind of suspected that Cupid felt something towards him and he was trying to work up the nerve to take her aside and tell her one of these days… because she was one of his best friends and he wanted to come out in a special way to her.

The strained awkward silence that Briar and Ashlynn had rushed in on soon after that had been so intense that Tiny (who had been passing by innocently at the time) had paused and asked out loud why the air felt so odd all of a sudden (giants weren't as sensitive to certain things as other races such as witches but they were good at sensing intense emotions and medium amounts of magic pouring through the air).

It had been an awkward few days after that.

"Well at the very least it's not another girl I have to worry about or feeling as though there is something wrong with me… at the very least…" Cupid flushed uncertainly. "Still I should have known!"

"You're still in training." Blondie pointed out. "Don't stress about it, it all ended well and now everyone can move forwards to the next crisis."

"Yeah." The winged girl couldn't help but chuckle. "Never a dull moment in this school!"

"What in the name of the Ancestors?" Mira's alarmed voice caught their attention; the redhead stared at the news club's mirror-pad with shaking hands and paling skin.

"Speaking of which…" Blondie whispered as they approached. "What's wrong Mira?"

Daring kindly extracted the mirror device from the stuttering witch's grip. "It says here that it's from Snow White, she says that she's a huge fan of Mira and would be very happy if she would accompany her highness to dinner and for her to help present a surprise to all of Ever After High that would end up being mutually beneficial to both Ever After and Mira's home kingdom." The prince informed the room while placing a steadying hand upon the mentioned witch's slightly trembling shoulder (something that Humphery was totally not jealous about! Okay maybe a little jealous).

No one noticed but Blondie paled at the news nearly as much as Clawstorm.

"B-but I'm below her royal majesty's station and from a completely foreign land!" Mira spoke, Clawstorm obviously attempting to cover her panicked horror with a completely different emotion. "What could her fairest highness in all the lands possibly want with a mere commoner witch born from her story enemy's lands?"

"Well you are very well liked among both the students and staff." Cupid attempted to placate the panicked witch. "And now that Raven is no longer a student at this school it only makes sense that you'd be chosen to help represent both the Rebel and growing neutral factions of the school so that she can show that she isn't favoring any one faction or group of students aside from her daughter in particular."

"Yes!" Mira wringed her hands together nervously, looking as if she were about to be sick. "That must be it, it has to be."

XXX

"Now will you finally admit that swordplay is a serious practiced skill that demands much discipline and instruction, not just observation and swinging the blade around in the hopes of hitting your target every so often?" Faybelle asked the prone princess, an amused smirk adorning the fairy's face.

In response Apple merely made a face and stuck her tongue out at the fairy.

"Such insolence!" Faybelle's tone faked horrified shock even when she couldn't wipe the triumphant wicked grin from her black painted lips (Raven had a whole supply of black lipstick that Apple had gotten her earlier in the year and while the princess had assured the witch that it was all right for her not to feel obligated to war that particular shade, which was designed specifically for villains (probably even for Raven _specifically_ considering the type of connections Apple had) and therefore super expensive, anymore Raven still did not want to waste it all. So Faybelle seeing the opportunity to get high quality make-up for free accepted the lipstick and a bunch of other villain themed cosmetics as gifts from the both of them). "Honestly princess you should only stick out your tongue like that only if you are planning on putting it to good use."

"What other use would I use it for?" Apple gasped in innocent confusion lifting her head off of the grassy forest floor to better peer at the fairy. "I'm kind of too out of breath for a verbal sparring match if that was what you had meant…"

Faybelle's eyes widened. "Sweet ancestors you are serious." The fairy snickered. "Don't worry princess once we manage to loosen Raven's conservative reservations I'll show you exactly what I mean."

"Huh?" Said Apple the innuendo in the other's voice going completely over her head.

"Oi we'd appreciate it if you two kept that aspect of your personal lives to yourselves!" Sparrow sniped motioning to himself, Darling, and Dexter. "Fay, we agreed to teach her about swords and fighting not have us learn about the two of you perving on each other and Raven!"

"She just said something uncouth in mixed company?" Apple asked Dexter and Darling as Faybelle proceeded to goad Sparrow.

"Don't worry about it." Darling assured glancing at her brother's blushing face. "Most of us are pretty used to her antics and as far as I can tell she only says that kind of stuff to people she knows won't dare gossip about it to the entire school. It's… a pretty common fairy thing, boast in front of close friends to keep them from trying to steal the two of you and boasting in a more tactful and calculated manor to everybody else to show off her winnings and new prestige. It's just how it works."

"Fairies are notoriously territorial." Dexter mumbled while extending a hand to help the blonde up.

"Raven keeps saying that too." Apple admitted with an eye roll. "Thank you for agreeing to do this secretly, my parents would flip if they ever found out I was doing anything un-maiden-like."

"We're more than happy to help out." Dexter smiled kindly, glancing pointedly to Darling. "Some of us understand the need for a girl to know how to defend herself."

Darling proudly clapped a hand on her brother's shoulder as they walked Apple to rest on a stump and offered her water, which she drank greedily. "While we're on the topic of self-defense we should definitely look into using that purse of yours as a weapon." Darling decided as she sat next to Apple and drank her own bottle of water.

"It would be convenient if I could figure out different ways of using this thing in case of an emergency." Apple admitted as she searched through said objects contents for her phone. "Raven said that she'd hext me to tell me about how her first series of major tests went, she's been studying like nobody's business and inhaling all the information that they are giving her."

"So in other words she's adjusting to her new school rather well?" Darling asked.

Apple smiled softly. "Like a fish to water." She stated feeling a pang of guilt, Raven had been trying to hide it from her but Apple could tell that to the witch Hathor Academy was like coming home after a long and stressful period of being away. Raven loved being surrounded by other witches who weren't being trained to become villains, she missed being able to partake of her culture, and more importantly she felt safe at the academy in a way that had been achieved at Ever After only after Apple had verbally admitted to giving up on forcing Raven to change into something she was not and accepting who Raven was, for real, not just as another means to create peace between them.

Apple knew that she was lucky to still be as close as she was to the witch at all, that it was only due to Raven's extreme fondness and sense of duty towards her and Faybelle's personal amusement that had kept Apple at her side at all. It was going to take a lot of work to fix the rift that had formed between them, allowing Raven her personal need to distance herself from a good majority of the things that involved Ever After, and to actually learn how to get along with Faybelle and share Raven with the fairy… and maybe even learn to accept the fact that Apple was slowly growing scarily fond of Faybelle too, but she'd do it. She had salvaged enough footholds with her newly realized feelings for Raven that she was not going to let go for anything as long as Raven still wanted her in the witch's life.

All thoughts in regard to Raven, Faybelle, and their odd little triangle halted as her eyes landed upon the little icon that indicated that her mother had sent her a message of a royal official capacity.

"What's with the face princess?" Faybelle called, halting Sparrow mid-rant.

"My mother's going to rebuild the Dragon Games arena, she wants me to take Raven back to Ever After for the weekend and see if I can help convince Mira Shards to be the official civilian guest of the White family so that she can represent the plight of all the endangered species of dragon in both Ever After and in her and Raven's homelands." Apple reported with narrowed, suspicious eyes at her phone's screen. "Seems as though she wants to improve relations between Ever After and the Queen lands while also endearing herself to the school's populace."

"Does she now?" Faybelle sounded just as suspicious as Apple. "Why now do you suppose? I mean after all of these years of not personally acknowledging the Queen territories in any manor save for reminiscing about how "evil" Raven's mother was it does seem awfully strange to make such a bold statement of public support." The fairy barely managed to hold back a sneer.

"Mom probably sensed the political tides changing." Apple stated not sounding impressed or kind about her mother's attempt at diplomacy. "She probably wants to avoid controversy towards her deliberate inactivity in showing kindness towards Raven's family and her people in the name of keeping up her misplaced distain for Raven's mother."

 _And to soften the blow should it ever come to light that the queen and king of Ever After had a hand in helping a notorious group of witch haters_ … but Apple didn't say this out loud.

"I know that Raven wants to come back for a visit but I'm not too sure that she'll be willing to come back while my mother is around to recall how "evil" her mother appeared to act." Apple frowned. "I suppose if Raven doesn't want to deal with all this I can say that Raven has to study for stuff, it's not exactly a lie…"

"Highly doubt your mother would allow her own wife up on the stage let alone let me anywhere near you…" Faybelle grumbled darkly.

"Maybe I could say that I'm helping Raven with an assignment this weekend, compromise by making a quick cameo appearance with Raven via mirror-chat if she's so bent on me and Raven being apart of this… however that would leave Mira to fend my mother off all by herself and she really seems to be spooked by the queen of Ever After… not that I blame her considering my mother's reputation for borderline racist stances in regards to the villain kingdoms and the people who live in them…" Apple muttered to herself as she forwarded her mother's message to Raven along with sending several hexts about the different options that they could go to avoid the whole sordid affair.

"I mean the Headmaster is already giving me the stink eye every time we come back from visiting Raven for the weekend if she were to come over here there would literally be no way he'd be allowing me to go anywhere alone with her and Giles seems to know that leaving her alone with you would probably be just as bad as being left alone with me and she'd be all too happy to go along with whatever plans that they would have to keep her celibate because Giles has all these books that he keeps giving her and she just reads like a starving woman and the Headmaster and her are trying so hard to make nice-nice and she's already made it clear that she enjoys acting like a prude just to see me all riled up and you all flustered…" Faybelle continued to grumble.

"At the very least her not being allowed back into the dorms unsupervised might save me from having to explain why I haven't moved out all of her old stuff- er the stuff I had gotten for her way back when…" Apple coughed in embarrassment.

"You know I have a cousin or two who might like the doom and gloom stuff, Raven's made it abundantly clear that we're allowed to do whatever with it so we've got free reign to where it goes." Faybelle piped up conversationally.

"As long as it's going somewhere that all that stuff would be appreciated, you know I never would have guessed that Raven would have such a fondness for colorful flowers before now, but my main concern is to what to do with all of that hextra space!" Apple replied back absently sending a warning to Mira's phone.

Faybelle cast the princess a sly look. "Oh I could think of a few things to do with that space… if only Raven could be allowed to stay with you, or me for that matter when she visits…" The fairy trailed off with a put out sigh, because while the Headmaster and Giles had not spoke any direct words they had made it abundantly clear that they were going to take their newly acquired grandfather and granduncle duties seriously while also maintaining the school's policy (which was more of a futile idealistic hope in Faybelle's opinion) of keeping all students (or former students in Raven's case) chaste while they are on campus. And what was worse was that Raven had expressed that she agreed with this verdict, citing that it would be far too awkward for her if her newly discovered relatives suspected anything of the sort of thing that she and Apple were suddenly so obsessed with as of late to have transpired anywhere on campus.

Which, okay yeah, Faybelle could relate and sympathize with that feeling (except in her case her mother was hinting towards grandkids, grandkids, and more grandkids). Really what a bother.

Not that Raven or herself for that matter ever really had the time or the proper spare moment where they were both in the mood to do anything…

Raven wasn't the only one working hard in both school and in business, Faybelle had to attend covert meetings with her mother's allies and corresponded with Elenore Queen on so many things in preparation for a worse case scenario and to push Councilman Tomak out of power that by the end of the day she was just as tired as Raven often was and only had enough energy to egg Apple on in her flustered attempts to flirt and seduce Raven before both she and Raven dragged Apple up the stairs to sleep.

It was really funny how exhaustion and the constant threat of all-out war could force a semblance of peace in the personal life to the point where Apple was just an integrated part of this whole strange thing, like a light fixture or something, Faybelle had expected for the two of them to start fighting it all out for dominance and for the right to be Raven's romantic interest but somewhere between everybody pointing out that Apple would make a rather proper bridal gift concubine and the fact that all the scary stuff was really putting such small petty thoughts of possessiveness into severe perspective… it just wasn't an issue.

And also the real immediate threat of Raven up and deciding that she was better off without the both of them if they didn't get along helped a lot too…

"This is more than I ever wanted to know about their relationship, in fact I would have preferred never listening to this." Sparrow whispered, his eye twitching as the Charming siblings stared on wide-eyed.

Apple jumped when her phone chimed out indicating that she had gotten a message.

"…Raven says that if my mother's proposition turns out to be honest and the Evil Fairy sees an opportunity to be exploited then she'd be willing to bear through with it." Apple winced. "She says that the Thorn Clan might be able to get a jump in on this too and on a public note this would strengthen ties between our perspective homelands."

"Well my mother would definitely see some benefits to this." Faybelle grumbled bitterly. "Isn't it a bit dangerous though? The enemy wants war and since they've failed to make it with the Queen and King lands they might try to create discourse between Ever After and the Queen territories."

 _They've already tried_. Apple winced at the thought, reminding herself that Faybelle had no idea that Snow White and Prince Charming had already done something that would result in war if too many people knew about it, in fact she wouldn't be surprised if the Thorn family demanded reparations for all the trouble her parents had inadvertently caused resulting in the villain community and international relations, maybe even demanding that they be held responsible for the few lives that had been reportedly lost when that comet landed.

"…My mother… has never really been concerned with such things." Apple coughed. "She is the fairest of them all and therefore well loved by most everybody according to the polls so…"

"Riiiight." Faybelle said flatly. "And whom exactly is she polling to get those results?"

"She's got several royal fan clubs, volunteers who take the survey, and keeps a close eye on Ever After High's news feeds and social media." Informed Apple wearily when Faybelle made a face.

"So she's got her fans, the weird people who actually take time out of their lives to do these surveys-

"Buy the surveys." Apple interrupts.

Faybelle makes a face. "-Care enough to _buy_ surveys and cyber watch the newsfeeds of a high school that is technically under her rule in her kingdom?"

Apple sighs conceding to the point.

"I'm going to see if this might be turned into a longer weekend so that we can rest before ad after this whole thing is over." The princess turns back to her phone.

XXX

"Will you be ready to deploy in time?" Kline asks the man standing in front of him, all around the two are four muscular bodies dressed in black kneeling on the floor in a show of respect.

"Yes sir, I've only deployed the best of the best of my mercenaries, their disguises will be flawless even in the heat of battle. Queenie and her pathetic army of midgets won't know what hit 'em until the ground is stained in red." The elderly lord across from Kline speaks in a nasally voice, his tailored "battle uniform" (he fancied himself a general in the upcoming wars he was certain were to start any day now) only made the man look even scrawnier than he did normally.

"Very good my friend I'm glad to see that there is at least one man that I can truly count on to be loyal to our cause. I look forward to seeing the fruits of your handiwork." Kline inclined his head genially.

"Think little of it young sir." The lord assures. "I knew your father, he and I we good friends, when he was alive he helped us do many great things to this land, truly those whining peasants should have been more grateful and should not have dared to celebrate his death, not on my properties they didn't at least I made certain of that." The man glances around at his armed goons pointedly. "I know that you are not one of those unnatural freakish magical creatures of nature like those horrid false reports from the Wonderland barbarians keep saying, you have served all of us well since you had taken over from your father, after this I plan to make my so-called fellow kings who are either trying to flee like cowards or are attempting to form a coup against you realize their mistakes… or face the consequences." The man takes another pointed look around, his grey bullet head swiveling to and fro comically.

"And I trust that you will succeed well in this endeavor." Kline smiled and bowed his head humbly. "I thank you for your help and I look forward to asking for your advice in the hopefully near future… as the war rages and our dreams of " _purifying the land_ " come true."

The lord across the disguised warlock blustered and preened, not taking note of the almost sarcastic tone that Kline had spoken in nor very much else as he was blinded by his own pride.

 _It's like leading the lambs out to the sacrificial blade_. Kline thought to himself mildly, after all when this was all said and done the lords of these pathetic kingdoms being done with their usefulness would be destroyed as a matter of course, the hunters eradicated and fearsome reputation used as a scapegoat in order to turn fears upon the citizens of Ever After and the Charming kingdoms when the last of the recent Queen family had been taken care of and dear Clementine was to bravely take the throne.

The current royal family would not be forgotten, while his father held the current matriarch in contempt Kline respected both Clawstorm and Raven Queen greatly, their loving memories would help fuel the flames to the wildfire and he could be free to admire their short lives and accomplishments in peace.

After all Raven Queen was famous for standing up to centuries of tradition and to a school full of powerful future rulers (most of whole he would have eradicated as a mere method of due course of course) it was a shame that he'd have to kill her, she could have been a very important ally if she were more easily manipulated and not apart of the Queen family.

And Clawstorm, dear Clawstorm, his beloved sister's dearest childhood friend… he hated that he would have to bring his sister grief by killing her once most treasured non-familial companion, she would never know it was by her own family's hand that the woman's demise had come, it would just have to be so since she refused to see her one and only best friend as the enemy.

A little lie to his future queen wouldn't hurt very much would it?

XXX

"So what do you make of it?" Raven asked the mirror-pad that she had propped up next to her cauldron. "Should I call the Evil Fairy and ask her if there is any merit to this or should I be calling to advise her of my concerns?"

Milton and Giles both sighed. "We might as well gain something positive from this too if we can, this is of course taking into consideration in the event that your in-laws actually let you come back here." The Headmaster grumbled. "Ever After High will be safe for you to visit even with that woman making a spectacle."

"She did seem genuinely sorry for the whole asteroid thing." Raven tried to placate the two grim faced Grimm Brothers. "Surely she wouldn't be planning anything malicious."

"I'm afraid my dear that these kind of people are always sorry about something, especially when they are caught in the act." Milton informed the girl calmly. "However both Giles and I have not picked up on any obvious reason as to why she would come here aside from what she states in her message to you so there is not real reason for us to object to anything when she calls us to let us know about all of this."

Raven's eye's bug out slightly. "She hasn't called? I would have thought that she'd have to explain all the construction required to rebuild the arena!"

"Oh She hasn't started on the rebuilding process yet." Milton informed, both he and his bother watching the young witch's look of incredulity in amusement.

"But she's scheduled to come in less than a few days!" Raven exclaimed.

"Dwarves are capable of building things very quickly and the queen has access to the best of the best Dwarf-Construction guild." Giles informed the girl with a chuckle. "We know that this is hardly the way that you wanted to come back to the school for a visit but I'm sure that we can make the best of it."

Raven is silent for a moment, thinking. "This has all been purposely timed so that I'd be on the week-long break after the academy's testing days, I'm getting good marks in all of my tested subjects thus far I'm certain that I can come a day or so early-"

"Shouldn't you be more concerned with taking that day off to rest?" Milton reminded in concern, the man eyeing the dark circles under his granddaughter's eyes. The girl had much to catch up on in the academic sense and even though she was where she was supposed to be in terms of age group and classes she still had lots to do with starting courses and moving in while in the middle of the term.

"I'll be fine." Raven assured. "I'll try to get to bed earlier and I'll rest full eight hours of sleep when I'm back there, I just really want at least one day to be back at Ever After High without having to worry about political ramifications and all this intrigue."

"So you won't argue if I say that your imposed bedtime will be around nine thirty?" Milton asked for all the world like he was just a normal grandfather, Giles rolled his eyes behind him.

"I'll most likely already be dozing off around nine and will have to go to bed early but it'll be worth it." Raven chuckled back even though she was dead serious. "I'll even see if I can get my grandmother's dragon to come too, it'll be good to get awareness out there about endangered species of native dragons at the very least."

"We'll be looking forward to seeing you Raven." Giles said honestly. "Now go get some sleep, trust me that herbal remedies exam your currently studying for is a lot easier than what your instructors have led you all to believe."

Raven huffed a tired laugh. "I look forward to seeing you uncle Giles, Grandfather." The witch spoke the familial titles pointedly.

The two men smiled at the new titles and a moment later the older members of the Grimm clan bid the younger goodnight.

XXX

"Alright, where have you two scheming gremlins hidden my pajamas and my _real_ underwear?" Raven demands from atop the staircase.

"I think that all that studying has melted your brain if you're so far gone as to mislabel our respective species." Faybelle grins wickedly moving her black game piece on the checkerboard she is currently playing with Apple.

"Real underwear?" Apple asks innocently.

"Yeah, those pieces of fabric you swiped before replacing them with things like this." Raven held up a lacy scrap of green fabric with two fingers, making sure to keep it away from a purring Nevermore's curious reaching paws as the dragon sat on her shoulders.

"That looks like real underwear to me." Apple nodded to herself. "It's pretty warm out here, those are pretty enough to be used as both underwear and pajamas you know."

"Both fashionable and practical." Faybelle commented lightly.

"I'll bet you two think it is." Raven rolled her eyes. I'm not going to have to deal with this in Ever After too am I?"

"Oh come on you know you love it when we do this kind of stuff, if you didn't you would have put a stop to it ages ago." Apple cooed.

Raven hid a smile as she descended the stairs. "Maybe…" She admitted. "But no matter how much I'm flattered by this attention I do not want to give… certain people cause to have my breaks with the two of you chaperoned if it is discovered that Apple is a participating force not a hindrance." The witch pointed out plainly.

The fairy and princess both made faces.

"Yeah that would be a problem." Faybelle admitted grudgingly pulling the witch into her lap as Raven drew near.

"Did you finally get enough sleep last night or are we going to have to wake you in the carriage when we arrive?" Apple asked as she accepted Nevermore in order to help the dragon into her harness.

"…I might nap a little." Raven coughed guiltily. "Grandfather doesn't know quite what to make of this sudden and unexpected event that your mother has put together mostly without his permission, so he's going to keep me close just in case." The witch looked away guiltily.

"It's okay to say that he doesn't trust her." Apple's eyes narrowed. " _I_ don't trust her, she'd only come back to the school if she had an ulterior motive, Mira doesn't know what to make out of all of this either, she's a nervous wreck and I've been around witches long enough to tell that it's not just because of being on stage with a queen that is having her so worked up… I suspect that she senses something off about all of this."

"I sense something off about all of this." Raven snorted. "But my grandfather and granduncle are keeping their ears to the ground and we won't know what's going on until it's happening so…" Raven shrugged. "Hopefully this'll be all about posturing and that will be that."

"At least there is not much chance of something exploding." Apple muttered. "What?" The princess demanded to the shocked faces looking at her.

"You jinxed it!" Faybelle exclaimed.

"I did not! I mean how often does political posturing result in something exploding?" Apple huffed affronted.

"She did it again!" Faybelle declared dramatically.

"Apple maybe it's time for you and I to have a talk about tempting fate and how the universe loves to display it's odd sense of humor upon us mere mortals…" Raven began.


	45. Chapter 45

In the part of Clawstorm's brain that still held the ability to think rationally, and was not currently still frozen in illogical terror at the memory of Snow White's expectant thousand watt grin, she reflected that perhaps she should have gone with her back up plan and just pretended to be sick or had to go home for a private family emergency or something because this… this was strange.

She should've trusted her instincts on this one, but nooo, because Clawstorm had been sooo certain that Snowball wasn't the type of creep that could spot her out in her Mira persona merely based of a few measly clues!

Well now Clawstorm knew differently and she was mentally placing the other woman from the past-bully/annoyance category in her head to the creepy-stalker-stay-away- _ohmigawd-get-it-de-hell-away-from-me_ category.

"Mira?" Apple asked gently. "Is my mother really telling the truth or is there a whole different side to this story?"

Behind the princess her daughter Raven, Faybelle, Bad Wolf, and the Grim Brothers looked at her expectantly.

Clawstorm swallowed, the Mira persona quickly looking from side to side to make extra certain that there were no dwarves lurking in the shadows.

"No." She said weakly. "No it is not the truth, but to be fair I was the one who suggested that she cover up what really happened as a simple training exorcise… her fair highness is the one who suggested that it would be more believable if… I was the um…" Mira trailed off, not completely having to fabricate the meek look as she stared at her shoes. "Professor Bad Wolf knows more about what's going on I think…"

"I do." The man in question stepped up and Clawstorm couldn't ask for a better friend n the world as Bane began to explain the morning's events (save for certain embarrassing details like who Mira really was and most of Snow White's odd fixation on her).

Clawstorm hazarded meeting her gaze with her daughter's, Raven's understanding, awkward gaze felt like it matched her own and the two witch's winced in sympathy for each other. The mutual understanding that passed between the two was almost palpable.

In hindsight Raven had mused she really should have trusted her instincts and had played sick or said that she had too much studying to do, and perhaps find a way to bring Mira over to the academy for good measure… because this was indeed strange…

XXX

 _A day before…_

Something big might quite possibly happen in the very near future…

Maybe.

And that was the trouble of being able to feel out the ninth sight (sixth sight was for ghosts, seventh was for sensing out magic, while the eighth sight usually developed when one had small children, it was also more commonly known as having "eyes at the back of one's head and around walls and corners" because it seemed like a rare, rare thing sometimes for witchlings to get away with anything as long as their mothers were within earshot or had access to a phone) the ninth sight was not an exact use of magic seeing as it dealt with sensing out things to come in the near or distant future that may or may not happen at all… because it was the future… and trying to hold the future in one's mind was like both holding water with a strainer and trying to feel out shapes of broken glass in the dark with your bare feet, the future being so filled with different possibilities and alternate realities it wasn't exactly something one could predict with absolute accuracy or at all.

Thus it goes without saying that beings born with an ability that was able to sense the uncertain possibilities of certain future events was incredibly unnerving and annoying as hell. All beings naturally born with this ability mostly despised having the sudden overwhelming feeling that something was about to happen only for it not to happen at all leaving everybody with the ability confused and on edge for the rest of the day.

Fortunately for Raven living in a place like Ever After High for so long had pretty much gotten her used to having such feelings almost constantly and thus she was able to ignore the blasted sight a majority of the time unless she deliberately called upon it for special occasions, like when she wanted to sound all mystical and all-knowing to someone that was being particularly annoying as was most likely to get what was coming to the sooner or later anyway or when she was stuck in a Wonderlandian maze, it was pretty much impossible to find your way out of a Wonderlandian maze by one's self unless you were either a native or possessed ninth sight.

However this was a special rare instance where the likelihood of something overwhelmingly foreboding was about to happen was more probably likely than most days. It itched so badly in the air that half of Hathor Academy could feel that something was in the air, and while most either ignored it or glared suspiciously at the sky or ground thinking that perhaps there would be a particularly vicious surprise storm or earthquake over the weekend Raven's grandmother while loaning out her dragon Nightshade had handed the young witch several belt pouches filled with things that made Raven almost too terrified to wear them on her person and had given her strict instructions to stay as close to her grandfather and Giles as she could during her stay in Ever After, much to Apple's endless confusion (since the princess did not possess a ninth sight) and Faybelle knew better than to dispute an elderly witch that has been around the block a few times so she merely sulked.

Raven did not elaborate when Apple cast her a questioning gaze, ninth sight was something that was only spoken very lightly on occasion to people who did not possess it, most who did not have it tended to grow alarmed when it was explained to them and it was such a hit and miss ability that it was hardly reliable enough to get people actually worried over it. Although it wouldn't surprise Raven if her grandmother was one of the few that had mastered the ability somewhat to the point where they could tell for certain that something in particular was going to happen…

But she wasn't going to bank on it and her grandmother probably wouldn't tell her if asked because it had to do with an unreliable ability and older witches especially were keen of keeping up reliable appearances with their powers.

And apparently her grandmother had sent a message to her grandfather because as soon as Raven stepped off the carriage at Ever After High the old man made it silently clear during their carefully worded and choreographed greetings (so as not to let anyone in on the fact that the elder was her grandfather) that he was going to keep the young girl in his sights nearly the whole time. And to be fair it wasn't as though Raven wasn't encouraging such overprotectiveness that she'd normally object to on a regular day, but the itch of all the possibilities practically vibrating in the air along with the uncertainty of what might happen with Snow White's arrival made it pretty easy for Raven to find herself making sure not to stray out of sight from either the Grim Brothers or the resident faculty, it was just not the type of day she felt comfortable doing such things like being grown up and independent.

"So you guys do wear the pointy hats and wear all black." Hunter began conversationally inclining his head at the black uniform witch's hat standing proudly on Raven's head, the girl had decided that since she was going to be expected to represent the Queen Land's royalty for the weekend it was best to do so in one of her new school's everyday and dress uniforms.

"Indeed we do." Raven smiled motioning to her midsection with one hand and putting the other inside a concealed pocket in the knee-length skirt of her uniform. "At the academy they've separated us out into different disciplined departments the green utility belt and the green band on my hat indicate that I'm in the natural herbatology course for basic schooling, as my studies progress and my chosen disciplines narrow the belts get different colored trims and patterns to indicate what I'll be specializing in.

"Must be a little easier knowing what to wear everyday." Ashlynn observed while cuddling a purring Nevermore in her arms, the human girl and her boyfriend sending suspicious glances over Raven's shoulders to where Headmaster Grimm was attempting to look natural and innocent as he stood behind the young witch a few feet away.

"Actually it's a lot more difficult since the official academy uniforms come in a variety of different styles and combinations." Raven informed while trying to mime that it was perfectly fine that the Headmaster was obviously hovering in an odd manner for someone who was supposedly at odds with Raven for denying destiny and leaving the school a married girl along with giving up her title to someone else. "This is the hooded short sleeved version that I'm wearing with the special utility belt and the stripped knee-high socks whose green and white stripes show that I'm still in basic studies. There is a lot of color coordination as well as proper times to wear different uniforms, the academy is even older than Ever After and the traditions there in regards to this kind of thing are so ingrained that there are even sports teams between the different colored departments."

"So it's like the green team versus the yellow team?" Hunter asks dropping his suspicious gaze from the Headmaster to look at Raven in sudden interest, in his arms Nightshade leaned his long neck over to gently maneuver Nevermore's head back down from her attempt to climb Ashlynn's head with a soft reprimanding sound, the older dragon having long been used to his own code of conduct in humanoid company and demanded the same from his children whenever he was around to enforce it.

"And the red team, and the blue team, purple team, and so on down the rainbow, but we all band together when we are going up against another school of course." Raven assured.

"Well yes that only makes sense." Hunter nodded as if such things made perfect sense to him (and to be fair it probably did, at least he probably understood it better than Raven who spent several days observing others in their casual clothing worried that she'd have to wear all green all the time even in her days off).

"Speaking of teams I think that you and Apple should have a word or two with Mira, she's been a nervous wreck all week about that not-so-secret big extravaganza that Snow White is going to be putting on tomorrow, she's good at hiding her feelings on the matter I think that she's petrified that the queen inviting her to help present things is a trap to show the whole school that the two of you are _evil_ witches or something." Ashlynn requested sounding rather worried herself.

"Sounds like something my mother would do." Apple grumbled darkly from her spot not too far away (she stood beside a board looking Faybelle the human casting the Headmaster innocently confused stares as if she could get him to perhaps believe that Raven would be perfectly fine if he were to perhaps leave the witch for an hour or two alone in her capable company, not possessing the learned skill of deciphering teenaged girl's gestures and pointed looks the Headmaster only blinked at the princess in confusion), her mother was an attention hog after all and as previous examples had showed the woman was more than willing to throw others under the carriage if it meant that she'd be viewed as even more maidenly and fair than before.

The females (and Headmaster) of the group winced while Hunter stared at Apple in wide-eyed surprise.

"Could you tell us where Mira is?" Faybelle swooped in with uncharacteristic concern (she was certainly eyeing Apple with concern). "I need to discuss some Thorn Clan business with her anyway so it's probably best to kill two birds with one stone and just have all three of us go together."

"She's with Giles in the school archives helping him dig out some old dragon harnesses, the queen has sent over a few adult dragons in preparation for the games she wants to have start while she's here." The headmaster informed walking up beside his granddaughter with his arm held out, without even thinking about it Raven took it and allowed herself to be led away much to both Hunter and Ashlynn's wide-eyed confusion.

"It was good to see you two face to face again!" Raven called over her shoulder. "And thank you for watching the dragons while we help out with the pre-preparations."

"Why is she and the Headmaster being so nice to each other?" Hunter whispered to Apple suspiciously. "Does he have something on her?"

"He feels sorry about the whole thing with her mother." Apple quickly assured, it was vague but it wasn't a lie. "That and he's worried about Faybelle taking advantage of her virtue now that they are married." The princess cast Faybelle a sly look which only served to confuse Hunter further while Ashlynn merely sighed despairingly.

Faybelle grinned toothily (showing off her sharp little teeth). "He has every cause to be worried by the way." She winked at the human couple wickedly before grabbing Apple's arm and walking away.

"Is Raven really going to be all right with all of this going on?" Hunter paled as he watched them all go.

"Somehow I get the feeling that she's dealing with all of this just fine." Ashlynn rolled her eyes not feeling at all worried in the slightest.

XXX

"And like I've said before Miss Shards you do not have to worry about persecution or being singled out in a negative manner here, we have strict policies to protect our students and Mr. Bad Wolf will be with you the entire time so you should not worry about a thing." Giles continued to assure a bewildered Mira Shards as the witch used her magic to hover the dragon tackle onto rolling sleds.

"The whole event will be closely monitored and it's highly unlikely that anything bad will happen, you are such a polite girl normally and you were chosen specifically because of your previous good work on Miss Lockes's show, all that you have to do is to continue to be your normal sweet self and talk about dragons." The Headmaster butted in, casting his brother a warning look for no doubt talking as though Snow White was going to eat the redheaded witch. "Just pretend that this is just another ordinary interview or something."

"Umm… Thank you?" Clawstorm murmured with wide eyes, she felt confused, and for good reason, back when she was in school for the first time around nobody save for her closest friends were at all concerned with protecting her reputation or person from a maiden who may have ill intentions. The fact that this was the Snow White, queen of all of Ever After was so perplexing that Clawstorm didn't know what to make of it.

It was incredibly spooky…

But then again she wasn't to become the next Evil Queen, nor did anybody save for Blondie know that she was the illegitimate daughter and heir to the Grimm line.

That might have everything to do with it actually.

But it didn't explain why everyone was acting like Snow White was the bad guy, the precious "fairest princess and queen of them all" was never even considered to be the bad guy even when she totally was in front of lots of witnesses.

This was all very strange.

"It'll be fine." Raven whispered as the two Grimm Brothers began bickering lightly on something that involved a lot of pointed looks and hand gestures. "My mom once said that witches don't just face life's trials bravely, we rig, trick, and take over the obstacles and make things go our way by the sheer force of our power and will. …That and Apple is bringing her stainless steel purse with her."

That made Clawstorm feel as though she could breathe again, the tension flooded out of her shoulders as she chuckled at her own words being used back at her. "Well as long as Lady Apple is around with her purse I suppose I'll always feel safe." The redheaded witch grinned at the princess in question.

"I'm more than happy to help." Apple assured with a nod and a wave.

Clawstorm was far from assured but she was a witch after all and as a witch who had just spent the past few years fighting tooth and nail and enduring the scorn of dozens of worlds for the sake of her family and people's protection she could hardly say that she was terrified enough to be scared away now, especially by one little whining maiden with an ego the size of Boo york!

Granted Snow White was her former bully who had made her high school life a living hell (not to be confused with various forms of actual hell and/or underworld realms… those actually had decent tourist attractions and lovely blues music played in the surprisingly clean streets) in a bad frustrating way, but honestly compared to Clawstorm's other problems Snow White and whatever vendettas she had against her at large for the mere crime of simply existing were hardly enough to get so worked up about, all that Clawstorm had to do was have her Mira persona smile kindly and hold her tongue on whatever cutting remarks the woman made towards her family, pose for some awkward pictures and then Snowy would be gone and Clawstorm could go back to figuring out her real enemy's slimy little schemes and saving all of the fairytale realms from all out war.

Once put into perspective that did help alleviate much of Clawstorms concerns.

And it wasn't like old Snowball had enough brains to see though her Mira persona, after all Clawstorm was merely a means to an end for the other woman back in high school, it wasn't as though Snowy was obsessed with her or anything, at least not to the point where she could spot Clawstorm hiding behind a new face!

That would be utterly ridiculous! …Aaand creepy, very, very creepy.

Now if only she could do away with the annoying itch to her ninth sight…

XXX

The day she was to arrive at the school Snow White nervously checked over her appearance in her compact mirror and worried the fabric of her pristine white dress at the knees as her transport moved along the road. "Oh Anton what am I to say to her? She's going to be rightly upset to even see me, how do I keep her from just disappearing the moment she suspects that I know who she really is?"

"As long as my Lady does not come out and say that you know of her dark ladyship's true identity on the first meeting you may have more of a chance to built a tentative bridge through communication and subterfuge. Right now her dark ladyship is like a mother wyvern whose family and territory have been attacked she will only allow for assistance if she believes that it is on her terms and that you will not be a threat to her or her family, I cannot guarantee that this will end like my lady would like it to, however it is a start and if done correctly the minimum of what we want to achieve will be achieved." The warlock concludes wisely while nodding to himself.

Having spent most of his life being raised beside Clawstorm to become her future footman had taught the man many things about the witch, and while he knew that the woman was going to become spitting mad once she discovered that Anton was aiding her former bully like this he honestly believed that this was the safest course of action that could actually help in getting Clawstorm out alive from all of this, a safety net if needed so that she could live another day to save her people and their homelands.

She did help him find the love of his life and find a home he could find true happiness in, for that he owed her his help in potentially saving her life… whether she liked it or not.

"Thank you for coming with me Anton, I don't think that I could have done this alone and I need a go-between for me and Apple right now." Snow White sighed, it seemed as though as more time went on the more and more Apple seemed to grow to either distrust her parents or find out something about their pasts which only served to make her distrust them even more, and now it was to the point where she was refusing to even speak to them, the only saving grace that Snow White and Prince Charming got was Anton and (surprisingly) Raven, the witch and warlock often acting as messengers and a sympathetic ear to both parties.

"Lady Raven is hopeful that the princess will grow less angry as time heals those wounds and the immediate threat has been vanquished, she is young and needs time to sort these things out for herself… I'm afraid that there is simply not much that I can do to advise my Lady of how to deal with that… teenagers were never really my expertise." The warlock coughed apologetically.

Snow White smiled kindly. "I understand Anton, and I highly doubt that there are very many people who are experts with teenagers."

"I just pray that we do not meet up with more trouble on our way to this act of in-house diplomacy…" Anton speaks gazing agitatedly out the magic resistant glass of the transport.

XXX

"I'm starting to regret this decision." Clawstorm grumbled, fidgeting on the welcoming platform about a mile away from the school's campus where she was supposed to meet with Snow White flying in dramatically on the back of the dragon Legend and have Blondie take a few pictures of the two of them before the queen whisked Mira away in her transport to spend a _private_ personal few hours with the woman doing gods knew what and for reasons that were yet to be explained to anybody.

It was out of character, suspicious, and all around not good for her as far as Clawstorm was concerned, Snowy was already one of hose types of people whom someone like her simply does not understand, and does not want to understand for that matter, she was just someone who people like Clawstorm just stayed out of the way of because once you were on "the bad list" with the queen you were on it for _decades_ and your family tended to suffer because of it.

Not that Clawstorm ever wanted to be on Snow White's good list either, while that may have once been the case once upon a time in the first year of high school when even she had been naïve enough to fall for the other girl's charms for a little while, as the years went by Clawstorm discovered that to Snow White friends were more like… pawns, depending on your use to her she'd keep you around in her inner circle but if you were no longer useful to her she'd sooner throw you away with little regard for anything that had been built between you.

"Just don't forget what Cupid told you about sexual harassment." Blondie piped up causing Bad Wolf to snicker.

Mira grimaced. "I literally have no idea as to why she would come to the conclusion that old Snowball would even want to lay a finger on the Mira persona like that, when I knew her she was obsessed with princes and being the perfect maiden, I haven't the foggiest of clues what she saw in my male self in those spell-induced dreams but whatever it was it surely would not have resulted in her suddenly deciding to fall for me. I mean if she treats the person she loves like she did me I'd hate to see how she'd treat someone she hates."

XXX

In a puff of green light the four hulking figures dressed in shades of green to match the landscape appeared briefly in the clearing before disappearing off into the safety of the trees, they moved stealthily towards their destination like stalking wild cats out on a hunt, the leader of them all focus zeroed in upon reaching their destination in time for the pounce.

The three trailing behind however were wearier of their surroundings, glancing up mostly as if particularly concerned that something (someone in particular) was about to pounce on them.

Even though the controversial speculation and evidence of the Evil Queen's true motives for her terrifying deeds had been brought to light and were circulating around all the realms like a full fledged storm the fact still remained that the insane woman had been willing to put so many worlds under her spell just so that she had the pleasure of hunting down her enemy like helpless prey herself. Despite recent propaganda issued by Wonderland and a surprising growing number of royal voices who had once known the woman personally that painted her as simply a mother with no real support to aid her, who was willing to do whatever she had to do to protect her family and kingdom even at the noble sacrifice of her reputation and her freedom… rumors still circulated, enough that most of the men back at the royal lord's various bases still awoke in a cold sweat in the middle of the night for fear that their nightmare of the woman appearing like a specter out of nowhere to exact her revenge on them all. Very few admitted to such thing out loud but for many the Evil Queen was more like a vengeful god than an ordinary witch, the fact that she had been able to escape her mirror prison by herself and reportedly killed all of their men, and their masters save for lord Kline and even he, the strongest (and also rumored to be a powerful warlock himself) of them all could not escape her unharmed?

It was a nice thought to believe that they could take her should they ever come face to face with her, that all the rumors were just merely hype and that their skills and their tech could put her down and thus prove once and for all that she was just another witch of flesh and bone that could be defeated with a well placed slice to the windpipe or a stab to the heart.

However most of the men on this team were men of combat (save for the leader, he was just trained, never was he actually in a war zone, which only goes to show what happens when you let people who don't know what they are doing assign the ranks and pick out the team members), even after many years of the semi pampered (or as pampered as one could get as a hired fist in a military bunker paid to keep the oppressed common folk in line) life style some of them were still battle weary veterans who had been hired and had fought in conflicts in many different realms doing deeds that made the more innocent of hearts shutter in horror. Being paranoid and not underestimating any and all potential angry things (and some not angry at all, some just did bad things dispassionately for the sake of their goals, which usually you could avoid those bad things happening to you if you could be useful or have access to lots of money to buy their mercy) that could and would kill them was a very good instinct to have in order to stay alive. Especially when the laws of nature factor in… like getting between an angry mother and her offspring… which technically applied here-

The thing about mercenaries is that despite their training to follow orders without question was that not very many of them are willing to be apart of a cause for free, if they feel as though they are not being paid enough and especially when they weren't particularly afraid of their bosses to risk their necks for the rate at what they are currently being paid… _thoughts_ formed in the back of their minds, and these tended to be thoughts about just how worth it would it be to just… leave.

They may be on the hunt, as their leader so believed that they were, but the three lagging slightly behind feared that very quickly they could become the hunted instead.

XXX

"Legend is getting antsy." Clawstorm murmured gently petting the dragon's side in an attempt to calm the creature. "Is it about time to do the dramatic flying thing over her fair highness's entourage yet? I think that both she and I could really use a bit of air to steady our wits."

"I don't see why you guys can't fly a little early." Blondie shrugged as she checked the time. "Just don't forget the com-unit so that I can direct you when she appears over the hill."

Clawstorm smiled. "Thanks chief you sure know how to look after a girl with the case of the nerves."

"A good reporter always looks out for her crew." Blondie smiled back as the witch slid the com-headset over her ears and mounted the excited dragon.

"Be safe Clawstorm." Bad Wolf waved as the witch took to the air. "And none of those usual tricks you usually pull today okay, remember jumping off of a dragon mid-air is only fun if you have someone you actually like screaming at you from below."

"I'll keep that in mind!" Clawstorm called to the ground with a laugh (while she was a teenager and new mother, well… ever since she had figured out how to fly on her own Clawstorm had taken to jumping out of windows and other tall places and scaring the living daylights out of all her friends and family just for the heck of it, however since her mother barely bothered to blink when she did this and therefore was no fun at all the woman was the only exception to the only friends and family rule), the two figures on the platform shrinking further and further as she gained altitude.

It felt good to be in the air again; the feeling freedom it brought after years of confinement and weeks of hiding was precious, the euphoric feeling was almost as tangibly sweet as that of the dripping nectar of the honey mist flower, Clawstorm closed her eyes and enjoyed the moment for as long as she could before she had to open her eyes to steer. Far down below her she could see Snow White's transport and her security detail a few miles away from the welcoming platform.

"Might as well begin my grand act now." The witch sighed in defeat, maneuvering her flying beast to swoop over the trees and road close to the queen's transport.

And that's when something caught her eye, between the trees there were three- no four swiftly moving shadows in green were flanking the approaching transport with odd intent.

One shadow spotted her, hunching over like a cornered wild beast, it tapped his twin on the shoulder and this time the other shadow let out an unprofessional yelp of surprise at the sight of her.

As one both shadows reached into their green uniforms.

"Blondie contact the queen's dwarves and warn them that they are about to be attacked! Bane I really need your help roughly three or so miles down the road like yesterday!" Clawstorm hollered into her com, giving Legend the signal to fly up and keep flying just before the witch jumped off and the green shadows below her shot compact glass balls with blue lightning arching inside at her.

Clawstorm lit up her fists in magic crossing her arms over her face as the twin glass orbs reached her.

The resulting explosion at the impact was enough to strip the leaves and branches off of the neighboring trees and branches as they were engulfed in bright white light.


	46. Chapter 46

"Mira?" Blondie called into the static her own com-unit. "Clawstorm! Do you read me?" The reporter ripped out her mirror-pad and very nearly found herself swearing in terror and only just barely managed to suppress the instinct to do so in order to roar out what needed to be said. "This is Blondie Lockes! You are under attack I repeat you are under attack! My friend spotted something and now I can't get hold of her! You hear me? Get out of there!"

There was a loud boom on the other end and the dwarf on the other end did not suppress their curse words.

"Miss Lockes you run back to the school and get help do not stop or linger for anything!" Bad Wolf ordered hopping off the platform.

"Be careful!" Blondie called out helplessly before he blurred and winked away from the speed that he was running, a large trail of dust left in his wake.

XXX

Clawstorm hisses a terrified squeak through her clenched teeth as yet another blast hits her shield and propels her skyward like a screeching red-haired, and black lace beach ball (it may _sound_ like fun but it was not in reality a pleasant experience).

It was a struggle to focus her attention to the green shadows below in order to properly aim her body to dive bomb them and thus force them to deplete their weapons by throwing more bombs in her direction, the constant spinning in the air and the sting of explosions against her shields were making her feel more than a little nauseous and she could feel a headache coming on accompanied by the ringing in her ears. From what she could see of the queen's transport the whole procession had been grounded to a deathly halt, despite her efforts to provide enough of a distraction for the transport to _keep moving_ (because being still when being attacked was **_Bad, Bad, BAD_** in all capital letters, italics, and bold fonts because if you are still moving it makes you a harder target to get ahold of but if you were still enough for the predators to sink their talons into flesh…) the attacking green shadows had released some sort of swarm of vaporous fiery specter-like red and gold… creature-things with long gangly limbs and sharp claws sprouting out all over, what she vaguely theorized (because it was difficult to be sure when one was being bounced around) to very well likely be the deadly sand snips that were rumored to come from certain cults of magi warlords used to rip apart villagers who refused to pay higher taxes and would kidnap the beautiful daughters as payment for their troubles (Clawstorm highly doubted that magi had warlords that were bold enough to be seen out in the open let alone go to all the trouble to rule a kingdom themselves but her students would not cease nattering on about this big romantic epic book thing, which turned into a series, which turned into a few movies and for once Clawstorm was actually happy to be in mirror prison because in her opinion the books and movies might as well have been written by a love-sick third grader with very alarming ideas of what real romantic relationships were. In short Clawstorm was not a fan).

The snips had the procession blocked on all sides; circling and slithering closer and closer to the white and gold carriage that the queen herself would be in, some were fighting off dwarves others were clambering over vehicles, the dwarves and the snips were about evenly matched but if this continued on casualties of the small bearded kind would begin to rise and if the queen was not someone deemed worth capturing then-

Enough was enough.

She turned so that the next blast that hit her beneath her heeled feet shooting her up high into the sky, the witch reached for her charm bracelet, freeing four tiny vials and one really big one, the third biggest in her arsenal to be more precise.

White mist billowed outward from the witch, the giant plume expanding down and out until it encompassed the road where the transport had been stopped and a fair bit of forest as well, from the depths of the cloud the rickety rattling of moving bones could be heard and occasionally a column on backbone or a few skeletal legs could be seen swimming in and out of the summoning cloud.

 _Time to heat things up_. Clawstorm's eyes blazed with red-ish purple magic as she shot down to the disoriented and stumbling glowing shapes below.

XXX

One of the benefits to being able to run at high speeds for a proper villain like Bane was that people couldn't easily see you as you ran by so you could properly surprise unsuspecting people (save for his beautiful wife who was more fight and snarl than scream and flight, after the first few disastrous occasions when they first met where he was left with a sore and bruised snout and several notches of begrudging respect for the then hooded girl and she was left with an injured hand that kept getting re-injured before it could heal properly and at least two busted picnic baskets that had been broken over his head they both agreed that the whole jump-scare bit was not going to work for their story) especially now since the suspicious muscly green ninja who was trying to sneak away from the white cloud of mist with the wide, horrified eyes of someone who had just gotten a good look at something that your hindbrain feared would kill you but your logical brain sort of sensed that it would merely prefer that you stay alive to enjoy the suffering and humiliation (Clawstorm often had that effect on people she didn't like, or if she was both hungry and sleep deprived) didn't even know that he was being circled until that split half-second where a furry grey paw swatted the side of his head, effectively knocking him out cold.

Bane held up the unconscious figure by the scruff of his uniform, surveying the green ninja with a look of tentative caution.

"This _is_ the bad guy right?" The werewolf asked the man-sized skeletal beast that had been chasing the green ninja out of the cloud of mist.

The golem jabberwocky nodded assuring-ly and accepted the limp man when Bane offered him to it.

Bane was about to go into the fray where he could hear battle cries from both dwarves and Clawstorm and a few inhuman squeals as well as some very manly human shouts screeching that the Evil Queen had returned when the movement that came from the jabberwocky golem gave him pause.

"Why are you removing his clothes?" Bane demanded.

In response the golem held up an array of throwing knives and two leaper-sticks between its claws.

"Ah." Bane nodded, making sure that there was no weapons on the prisoner for him to spring on them last second, that made sense.

"Before I head in is there anything that I should be aware of?" Bane asked figuring that if Clawstorm had enough control to both hear him and respond to him through one of her golems then things were going better inside than the ominous giant flying spine peeking through the cloud and the sounds of absolute pandemonium would initially allude one to.

The golem none-too-gently dropped the unconscious and half-dressed green ninja to the ground in favor of half hand-signing half gesturing (a sort of unspoken language that Bane had half picked up though the years of school where he had a crush on Clawstorm and wanted to know more about what she and Simone were talking about since they had spent most of the day communicating like that in order to deter the maiden brigade from listening in and had been forced out of sheer self-protection to learn it in better detail when his lovely wife had taught their daughters how to speak it which resulted in a scary time in his life where he was the lone man of the household who could not understand what all the women were saying to each other right in front of him) the hasty plan that Clawstorm had in mind at the moment, namely how to keep the ninjas and their summons from scampering away while she was distracted with keeping them from killing anybody.

"Alright." Bane nodded when the golem picked the green ninja back up and continued its task of stripping the man of his trousers. "I can do that no problem."

The werewolf took off running again but instead of running into the cloud of slowly dispersing mist he ran around it in wide circles moving closer and closer towards the center as he went, the force of the wind he was picking up causing the mist to swirl and compact into a funnel not unlike that of a thick tornado, but only moving at a slower, less destructive (but still distracting) high wind speed.

XXX

Clawstorm hissed when a tail from a panicked snip brushed her side and back, the half corrosive nature of the specter's form burned trough her shirt and left a rather sizable welt on her skin. Bane creating a funnel of air and mist from the outside while her giant bone golem flying above them all helped on the inside front had indeed helped in trapping those who were left inside and creating enough panic that the dwarf forces were able to down most of the snips and Clawstorm had managed to capture two out of the four ninjas known to her inside this chaos however all this keeping track of her golems, the dwarves, and herself was making it difficult for her to keep up her glamour completely, in some sparing instances she had lost her illusion completely, which had seemed to result in more than a few startled ninja encounters when they spotted her in her true witchy form, she swore the one she had caught outside had nearly burst into tears at the sight of her before he ran for his life.

 _Sure makes a girl feel real special to make handsome grown men scream like frightened children and run for their lives just at the mere sight of you_. Clawstorm thought self-depreciatively, for a villain there was always a fine line between being feared and being actually _feared_ , it was nice having the respect and all but to have people run away at the sight of you, even when you are fighting them and willing to kill if the situation called for it, was just depressing.

"Seriously what has become of my life?" Clawtorm complained glumly to the sky as she ducked a snip's swiping talon, the glowing creatures were attempting to gang up on her now, she could see from her golems eyes that either they were smart enough to figure out that if they could just take her out then they could proceed with whatever they were sent to accomplish in peace and victory, not pandemonium and the encroaching threat of being beaten out of existence.

She was trying to time it so that most of the snips would be surrounding her so that she could fly up and incinerate the annoying buggers from above (she'd give whomever wrote that travesty of a romance novel a slight reprieve, they were right in how to defeat a snip, you just had to knock out the floating magical parchment inside their bellies with either a pickax or a burst of magic and poof, they were gone) and she felt that she just about had them in a tight enough mob around her when there was several bursts of a tight beam of florescent pink magic that took out over half the snips and yet still merely thumped gently against Clawstorms shields.

"My Lady wait! It is too dangerous!" A vaguely familiar male voice called out, and Clawstorm felt that since the snips had all stopped, frozen in their tracks to stare in shocked confusion for the moment that she could perhaps find the time to remember where she had heard that voice before somewhere in her past but all those thoughts had been interrupted when a woman in a pristine white dress and a crown on her head burst forth from the gloom of the mist.

"Evil Queen!" Snow White cried out tears forming at the edges of her eyes as she leaped forwards and encircled her arms around the witch, Clawstorm so startled by the other's behavior and sudden appearance that she forgot to put up her shields to block the other woman from touching her.

The welts and bloodied gashes from snip contact and a few lucky hits from one of the green ninja's battle batons screamed in agony under Snow White's crushing embrace.

"Snow…ball?" Clawstorm stated weakly, caught between utter confusion and complete and utter terror of the woman who had not only made her life a living hell as if it were a sport in high school but had also kept up her prejudices as queen of Ever after and thus caused both her country, family, and people to suffer as a result suddenly hugging her as if Snow White and herself had been a long lost friends.

It was funny how Clawstorm could dive headfirst against scary green shadow ninjas and their snips without a second thought and literally jump into danger-filled Wonderland to fight Kline-bastard with an excited thrill of righteous bloodthirsty revenge in her chest and yet the second that Snow-freaking-White-miss-perfect-and-fair-and-maidenly jumps out of the shadows to say boo and Clawstorm jumps in fear and _freaking freezes_ in the middle of a fight!

It took a moment for Clawstorm to look down to her ratty band t-shirt and skinny jeans (the spell on her glamour allowed for a change in wardrobe as well, it wouldn't do for a grown witch on the run and in hiding to be in the predicament where she needed to be cut out of her too small clothing in order to move) to realize that she had at some point between the adrenalin pumping through her veins and the plans for snip devastation along with keeping track of her golems chasing the mysterious green men she had lost control over her glamour!

Oh this was not good.

A warmth of another body at her back and the army of dwarf security personal surrounding them protectively- none of them actually pointing their little axes accusingly at her thank gods but at the expansive void of mist and the glowing shapes of panicked snips beyond- brought Clawstorm back a little bit.

"…Anton? Is that you? What are you doing? It's dangerous out here you know!" Clawstorm snapped to the familiar warlock behind her, shielding them all from the snips while Clawstorm had been too stunned to do so herself.

"I could say the same thing to you your dark ladyship." The man pointed out cheerfully.

"What was that just now by the way?" Clawstorm asked as a means of distraction, trying to get back into focus with the battle at hand.

"Something we use for crowd control, it's merely a burst of harmless air and magic but it was obviously enough to send these critters back into their base summons." Anton replied, shooting off green bursts of magic at the approaching snips, a human shout rang out in the distance and Clawstorm focused the nearest golem to give chase to the green ninja who had shouted out in pain.

"I'm going to concentrate on the golems." Clawstorm announced before Snow White could speak and distract her further. She needed to focus, needed to keep her head in the game around them and not on why her former tormentor was acting so strangely, like maybe a type of strange that would make more sense if this were not a battlefield but a quiet place that held access to copious amounts of alcohol and that Snow White were half-dead drunk and not…

Clawstorm released control of her conscious mind and body, falling into herself and flowing more into the awareness that could be seen through the artificial senses of her golems. It was far more than a bit more power and concentration actually needed for such a task, in reality she only needed very little focus poured into her creations because her instincts and her witch mind help do most of the work for her but in this instance she needed all the focus she could give and still have it all be safe because she simply could not afford to have Snow White and her weirdness distract her as badly as she currently was.

The snips were loosing numbers in droves now, the pink beams of whatever crowd control devises that was used by Snow White's royal transport were doing most of the work, and through the thinning mist she could see what was hopefully the last remaining of the green ninjas cornered by the dwarf forces along the side of one of the security vehicles.

Word must have gotten around that the jabberwocky skeletons were the cavalry not the enemy because when two of her man-sized golems flew up silently behind the ninjas the most the dwarves ever did was merely nod slightly in their direction.

"This is far from the end." One of the green masked men sneered gripping a small cylinder with a big red button on one end of it, when he pressed it angry red lines with a pattern that Clawstorm recognized from circuit boards began to glow on the men's green uniforms. "If you think that we will be the last ones to come at you or that we will just merely be happy to surrender alive you've got another thing coming!"

"Sir what is this?" The second man demanded his leader, staring down at his uniform in horror, Clawstorm surmised that whatever was going on that the underlings didn't have a clue about it. Discretely she had her biggest golem fly out of the fading mist and moved the other two unconscious prisoners upward to meet the large skeleton so that it could hold the two men in it's large skeletal paws while the other two smaller golems raced down to collect the remains of their clothing the witch had a feeling that she might have to get rid of those things in a more secure location very soon.

"Our masters wanted assurances that there would be no loose ends, and what better way to serve the path to purity than to add salt unto the wounds of the impure empires our sacrificed remains will only inspire more of our holy brethren to stand up and take arms in the upcoming holy cleansing of the apocalypse! Imagine if we had been more successful in our mission as we rise up from our ruined earthly flesh to take our place amongst the holy ancestors of the correct breeding not only will the undeserving citizens of the two condemned empires of impurity fall into paranoia and war between each other but to also label them as murderers themselves! Alas we have failed in our task and the only honorable thing to do for such failure is to erase all trace of ourselves through the explosive embrace of eternal demise and pray that our efforts grant us into the gates of-" Droned on the unnamed leader of the pack, only to be interrupted mid-preach.

"Sacrifice? What the hell do you mean by sacrifice? And did you just say _Explosive_?" The underling demanded heatedly.

"The self-destruct mechanism has been built into our attire." The leader explained with a maniac grin on his face. "Our masters trusted my judgment to when we were to activate the dead man's switch in order to activate the explosives."

"You were- you are going to _blow us up_? You _knew_ that our clothes would _blow us up_?" The second ninja screeched clawing at his uniform to get it off.

"It is useless to fight it friend, once activated the clasps to unhook the cloth have sealed shut and you would need something stronger than your mere knife to cut yourself out." The leader pointed out when the other had taken out a knife from his belt and went after the tough material of his outfit in desperation. "At the very least the shrapnel from our bodies and our weapons will most likely take out a good portion of our enemies so take comfort in that."

"I'm not taking comfort in anything! I did not sign up to die!" The man struggling to get out of his clothes raged.

Before the leader could reply Clawstorm grabbed him with a golem, placing a boney finger across his mouth like a bit-gag to keep him from talking and held him still, a bony digit keeping the button on the dead man's switch in place as the second golem set to work trying to help the other man out of his armored clothes, the second ninja startled when the golem became known but once he realized that the jabberwocky's claws, teeth, and strength were enough to rip open the fabric the man stopped struggling and allowed the dwarves to rush in and help him too while they also getting a good look at the dead man's switch in the leader's struggling grasp.

"We can't deactivate it." One dwarf gruffly spoke at the golem. "Not without time and your dark highness releasing him and unfortunately not even rendering him unconscious will help, he's activated a timer as well, we've barely got five minutes… I'm afraid that there is nothing that we can do to save this one, or any others still in their uniforms."

The golems nodded their heads solemnly the one not holding the struggling leader collecting the remains of the other man's clothes before both taking off up into the sky.

"What about my other men? You can't just let them die! You can't! Their my team!" The half-naked survivor cried out. "Please! Don't let them die! Not like that! Not like that!" The man pleaded in despair to the departing golems and to the dwarves around him, only to stop when a dwarf poked him in the side and pointed to the giant golem sitting patiently behind him a few feet away, the men he was so worried about cradled safely in it's boney paws, from the man's relieved shout Clawstorm figured that she had managed to get all the men he actually cared about to safety.

There was a lake not too far from the chaos, it was not too big but it was big enough, the crystal clarity of the water revealed that it was certainly deep enough.

Three golems dropped their cloth and weapon-ized cargo into the pristine clear water, the forth dove under the rippling liquid just below the surface and skimmed quickly through the water until it released it's struggling burden, shooting out of the water at an angle and into the trees in the nick of time as a large explosion threw red tinted water and debris up high into the air.

XXX

Clawstorm saw through her golem's artificial senses the upper half of her body resting in the lap of Snow White as three golems flew towards the queen, her body, and those who were guarding them against any more unseen threats, the mist had left completely now, Bane was hiding behind some trees pretending to be searching for more potential threats, Clawstorm called her fourth golem to join him before she focused her mind back into her body.

"Threat eliminated, as far as I can tell there are no more nasty surprises but do keep an eye out from now on understood?" Clawstorm spoke from her own mouth pointedly not opening her eyes.

"What could they have possibly wanted?" Snow White asked sounding worried, Clawstorm felt the woman's hands brush over her sides and face in an oddly gentle manor though the witch took note that the nails on the human's hands felt more like _claws_ at the moment.

 _To kill you most likely_ , the witch thought but did not voice. "To start a war between your kingdom and mine, you'll have to ask the goons for specifics but I'd hazard a guess that the plan probably involved something that would make it seem to your people like my family was responsible for whatever terrible thing that might have happened which would upset our people because they would know that it wasn't true, and one or two more incidents like this one later and everyone would be calling for war, regardless of their leaders calling for peace." Clawstorm snorted her voice sounding croaked with tiredness and a fair bit lower than usual. "These guys are terribly predictable you know, can't start anything that they hope to accomplish without the bigger kingdoms distracting themselves with war that they've started with each other."

"That's horrible." The queen gasped in alarm.

 _Tell me about it_. Clawstorm grumbled mentally in a sarcastic tone.

"What do we do now Evil Queen?" Snow White asked and this time her hands skimmed, just briefly but still almost rather… oddly, over Clawstorm's muscled flat chest, it took everything the witch had not to flinch too badly as they realized that they were in their male form at the moment.

The witch opened their eyes but was careful to avoid looking at the queen, she sharply turned her form back to female in sheer self-defense, startling the lap her head lay upon as she did so, and touched her charm bracelet. "You will have would-be assas- enemy agents to interrogate and the delicate job of dealing with the aftermath of this to the public and other political figures who will be on edge and will be wanting to point fingers towards forceful action… which considering certain sensitive aspects to all of this would be a very bad idea." Clawstorm hazarded a hard pointed look to a startled and more than a little guilty looking Snow White the implications of what the woman had done in the past coming to light and the leverage that the enemy had over the White family ringing loud and true in the unspoken silence.

 _Good stay guilty!_ Clawstorm seethed beneath a tired mask, it was about time that it be known that Apple wasn't the only one who would not forgive the insufferable woman for her actions just because she was a fair maiden of _proper_ breeding and had both parents who were willing to claim her as their own (a sore point that teenaged Snow White never tired of pointing out to Clawstorm).

"My advisors and I will ensure of course that my court will not aim for war-" Snow White began but Clawstorm cut her off.

"It won't matter if you tell them to stay away from war Snowball." Clawstorm almost, not quite but almost, growled. "It's your people who love their " _fair queen"_ and country so much that will be the issue, a direct attack like this in their own homeland and against someone so " _fair_ " after all would surely be enough drive for the people to decide that the war will commence whether we are ready for it or not, this is going to terrify them to the point where they will feel like that they need to fight regardless of what is really in their best interests, and more likely than not the other side is going to propagandize this as a win and possibly start up recruitment again! Unless we can convincingly hide that this ever happened, let alone if you would even be willing to do so in the first place before reinforcements come from the school you've got a lot of damage control to do and I really have to go back into hiding in order to do some damage control myself..."

"Then let's hide this!" Snow White stated as if it were really that simple. "I'm not doubting your own skills in damage control… it has proven quite effective in the past after all…" The woman trailed off almost mournfully before snapping her attention back to the witch. "However this is really dangerous and dear little Raven deserves to still have a mother around, whether she is in disguise or no, I'm certain that we can come up with something!"

Alarms blared in Clawstorms mind at the odd phrasing of that sentence but the witch was too busy biting off the urge to sneer at what could be an unwanted, but unfortunately rather _useful_ ally in this mess.

"What do you suppose we do your _fair highness_? Say that this was all part of the show? A training exorcise or something?" Clawstorm growled bitterly in a sarcastic tone. "Honestly I can't think of anything that will work."

"Actually I'd phrase it more as… a test for the first civilian witch to enter into the hero classes as well as a tribute to a brave little girl who without a thought for her own safety fought off the bad guys in Wonderland and help free it, and a reward I would have Mira Shards be sworn in as an honorable emergency member of my personal guard. I hear that her family is quite set upon her throwing her into the dangerous conflict between her homeland and it's neighbors which would be such a shame considering the fact that I am quite the fan of hers." Snow White hummed impishly.

Clawstorm's brain screeched to a halt, there was no way the other woman was actually taking this seriously… was she? "I think that you should ask the little red-head about that, meanwhile I really have to go-"

"Evil Queen we both know that I'm already speaking to the little red-head." Snow White sighed gently picking up a section of Clawstorm's hair. "Your hair is still red from the glamour and I was able to spot your very unique eyebrow raising more than a few times to tell that you and Mira are the same person. And if you still don't believe me I saw you switch from Mira to your real form from the window of my transport."

" _Son of a_ -." Clawstorm tried to swear, jumping out of Snow White's lap to stare horrified at her red hair, but the queen was already putting a finger to the witch's lips.

"No need for such language dearest, we are on the same side for once, I will help you win this, I have the resources, I have the means, and you can still keep in hiding if it makes you feel better." Snow White assured. "Just please don't run off, not yet, this involves me and my family's safety as well and… I really am not a threat to you after everything that has happened, please just tell me what is going on and what needs to be done, let me prove to you that… I can be trusted with something like this that involves you, just this once?"

Clawstorm had her fingers around the glass summoning vials, she could run, she could disappear again she could-

 _But I have questions that need to be answered through proper channels_. A voice in her head pointed out. _And where am I to run off to after this? I wouldn't be able to hide anywhere useful at any rate._

"…There is a human maid that still works over in the United Council of Witches and Warlocks building it is not well known but she is the mother of the criminal known as Kline, she is in on everything going on I suspect, though just to avoid suspicion I'd like you to bring her in if you can on suspicions of child abduction some years ago of a young powerful witchling by the name of Clementine…"

XXX

 _Present time…_

"And then just as the Evil Queen had flown off with her golems into a giant mist cloud in the sky Miss Shards came stumbling out of the brush all battered and dazed but alive and her highness was so grateful to Miss Shards that she swore her in as her honorable personal guard on the spot." Bad Wolf explained, he had to do a little tweaking with the story to better cover Clawstorm's Mira persona's alias and he left out the part where he was listening in on everything that the two queens had talked about and how he pretended to be super worried about his missing student until Mira suddenly showed up behind him but those were just minor details that were best left out anyway.

"Her fair highness and Lady Apple were very kind in letting me borrow the dress that had been meant for Lady Apple as a gift." Mira made sure to point out politely, bandaged hands brushing gently over the gold embroidery of a dress that Snow White had admitted that she had always sort of envisioned Apple wearing something similar when she took the throne one day. "My usual attire I'm afraid did not survive as well…" It was practically scraps of black lacy rags that barely covered her but really the witch had more important things to worry about other than modesty.

"It looks lots better on you anyway." Apple assured, and the princess meant it with all truth (even though she did recognize the dress as the one that she had always envisioned herself wearing as the future Snow White and currently had the extreme urge to be rid of the blasted outfit for all the lies it represented) while Apple would have merely looked like a life-sized fairytale image of another fair monarch in a long line of fair monarchs, a pretty face to be seen briefly before being forgotten as just another Snow White, but Mira almost seemed to unconsciously _own_ the look in a way that Apple regretfully admitted to herself that she never could, even with the visible bandages covering her wounds the witch looked more like a queen that if seen immortalized on a tapestry a hundred to a thousand years from now by a casual observer who would stop by that particular image of Mira with her exotic looks and her oozing powerful queen-perhaps-even-empress-quality confident posture they would pause and perhaps want to ask more about who Mira was, because she just had that sort of air that made people unconsciously sit up and listen. It was even to the point where the red hair and the red jewels and fabric of the cape went well together, crushing the assumption that redheads could not pull off the color red well beneath the heel of Mira's white and gold shoes.

"You should wear that again sometime, with a crown, and maybe a scepter too." Apple hummed looking the sputtering tan witch up and down. "Dexter and Cupid did mention that you did not have very many changes of clothes in your closet, and that you don't have a proper ball gown or a dragon riding outfit for that matter… we should definitely fix that and soon, don't worry about the expense just consider it a thank you from me for saving my mother and a sorry for your best dress being ripped to shreds." Apple assured, still distracted because she knew that with the right outfit that Mira could go from submissive plain commoner to a _respected citizen of the Queen Lands_ who had every right to go to school beside future rulers and fairytales.

"U-umm?" Mira said looking nervously to Raven who was stifling laughter behind her hand.

"So…" Faybelle grimaced trying not to look at Mira in pity for either having to deal with Snow White or having just been roped into one of Apple's excuses for a shopping spree it could not be determined. "What do we do now?"

The Headmaster sighed. "You all will continue as if this is all normal and everything is going to plan while Giles and I will contact her highness and enforce some strict… reminders about commandeering a student for both a scapegoat and for her own personal use. Mira… I understand that it was an emergency and that you only did what you were trained to do by your… lovely parent…" Milton hissed out as best he could at the mention of the Enchanted Mirror, while still giving the redhead a pained pitying look. "But please remember what I said at our last meeting and I strongly urge you to put that into use at this moment for your own personal interest, that being said I want you to report to the nurse's station immediately and if you are deemed fit enough I think that it would be appropriate if you spent the remainder of the weekend being a body and chastity guard for your homeland's youngest heir… as your civic duty to the royal crown and as punishment for getting into another scrap with bad guys of course."

"Wait- what?" Faybelle complained and Apple did her very best not to direct her disappointed gaze towards the glaring man behind her.

"Yessir!" Mira saluted all serious business.

Raven took support of Clawstorm's arm and began leading her away. "Come on Mira, we can turn this into a girl's weekend and a sleepover if you are feeling up to it."


	47. Chapter 47

A/n: I'm hoping to get the ball rolling a bit faster and bring this all to a conclusion within the next few months but being forced by to write a mere twenty pages per chapter is grating on my nerves a bit. Hopefully I'll be able to finish all of this relatively soonish.

XXX

"You know, not counting your differences in beliefs you two have a lot more in common than many granddaughters and grandfathers out there." Giles observed knowingly as the maids cleared the dinner table. True to Raven's previous predictions she was nearly out like a light long before ten o'clock that evening, the girl had made a valiant effort to stay awake after she had her tummy filled with dinner but was ultimately defeated and had to be carried out of the dining room by one of the maid staff with barely a weak murmur of goodnight to the two older men. Not long after the maid had put the witch to bed had Mira Shards been called in to the Headmaster's guest quarters to make good on her temporary position as bodyguard and Faybelle deterrent, Milton had grumbling suspicions that the fairy was planning on a midnight visit to her wife just to be contrary towards protocols of decency and himself in particular.

XXX

Meanwhile in the Headmaster's guest quarters…

"Mira what are you doing in here?" Faybelle and Apple who had been startled by the lights suddenly being turned on by one very unimpressed looking redheaded witch stared at said girl with wide eyes.

"The Headmaster, the man who is kindly sticking his neck out for me at the moment with her fair highness the fairest of the fair of them all queen Snow White, did task me in being my home country's youngest royal heir's body and chastity guard, the young miss gave me permission to shoo the two of you away if she was already fast asleep and if she was not that I act as a very stubborn fourth wheel for she still needs to face his lordships honorable Giles Grimm and lord Headmaster Grimm in the morning with a clear and innocent conscience. Seeing as the young miss is indeed knocked out cold from both this exciting day and jet lag I must strongly but politely see your ladyships off to wherever you had snuck in and bid you goodnight." Mira stated politely and kindly but still firmly, her stance indicating that she was not going to change her mind.

"So it's perfectly fine having you here but not letting Raven's wife and best friend through?" Faybelle challenged bluntly her eyes narrowing in territorial suspicion.

"If your ladyship is worried for her wife's safety in that regard then it is my duty to in form you that aside from my meager status as a simple and plain commoner with nothing of substantial worldly worth or title save for the ones graciously given to me by the Enchanted Mirror and therefore making myself quite a distasteful prospect for the young miss and her very clear devotion to you and only you, if the Queen Lands do not go to war then my parent will be marrying me off to either a suitor that I have been arranged to be wed to before they had even been out of the womb, or an older suitor closer to home it is essential to keep good relations between the Enchanted Mirror and my future in-laws and therefore I must remain ever faithful to my future spouse whomever they turn out to be… that and Lady Raven is more like a highly prestigious extended family member, and I don't do incest." Mira declared with slightly narrowed eyes, she had been planning on informing Humphrey or her "engagement" and impending "marriage" (she had a cousin in the North Sand and Stone region as well as an old ally in the undersea kingdom off the coast of her homeland whom she had been in loose contact with over the years and both of whom who have stated that they would be willing to hide her if she ever needed a place to run to and disappear indefinitely).

"You're engaged?" Apple blinked in surprise even as Faybelle relaxed into an accepting sulk. "Well I suppose that it's still not an uncommon practice these days outside of royalty, who are you being married off to? And why? I thought that the Enchanted Mirror wanted you to serve your homeland."

Clawstorm was prepared for this; she had worked out the bugs of her explanation long ago, and then updated it in case Humphrey tried being more than just friends. "That is only in the event of war where I could defend the land and royal family through honor of war and constant life-threatening sacrifice, however if there is no war then I would be put to better use as a wife to a family of standing higher than my own, as it is I am currently engaged to either become one of the harem wives to the young princess Ali daughter of pharaoh Nefret Queen of the North Sand and Stones empire when she turns of age to have a proper harem in three or so years, perhaps earlier if I give permission to allow myself be wed to a thirteen-year-old, or a middle aged lower ranking lord from the sea kingdom beside my homeland, it is quite in style for one of their kind to take land dwellers as brides."

Apple's eyes grew wider while Faybelle scrunched her face up in disgust.

"So you either have to marry an old fish face or a kid?" The fairy asked sounding incredulous.

"Only if my services are not better used in fighting for home and country." Mira sniffed all business-like. "It is my duty to the one kind enough to adopt me."

"Humphrey is going to be very shocked." Apple whispered, it was an understatement and all the females knew it.

"Right…" Faybelle said slowly. "And it is also your duty to ensure that an Evil Fairy Queen and her unofficial human consort can't properly greet her wife in a time when everything is actually quiet?"

Apple? A consort? Yeesh her daughter was quite the adventurous little thing Clawstorm mused. "Yes your ladyship it is like you say."

"So not even if I mention that-?"

"No, still not going to work."

"Aw come on!"

"I am merely doing my duty and adhering to my training." Mira sniffed.

XXX

"Yes well despite her stance on being able to choose one's destiny for themselves she has quite an impressive grasp on the power of words and stories, as well as a keen interest in the wellbeing of the school community as a whole, she has been quite helpful in certain aspects despite her not attending classes here anymore, like with that litter of dragons, I would have never have known about that in time for their births unless she had told me about it, and something tells me that she's been using her influence to resolve far more conflicts than I'd ever know about in the past few weeks." Milton shook his head. "She's a willful one, just like her mother and grandmother, I don't know why I was so surprised on Legacy Day, apparently if I had just observed closer I would've seen it coming."

"She gets a lot of her willfulness from you too brother dear." Giles reminded dryly. "She actually reminds me more of you than she does of Elenore, if memory serves me correctly for a short time you had been the one to openly defy your social standing by being with Elenore while she merely skirted on the edge of what was acceptable story roles and what wasn't. She even looks like you when she's got that stubborn set in her jaw."

"My stubbornness and her grandmother's will, Ancestors help us all if she's inherited her mother's unique gift for misdirection and hiding between blades of grass." Milton muttered, trying not to think about how all of his attempts at pinpointing his daughter's current location were turning up alarmingly empty.

"She has the potential to become a great Headmistress someday." Giles mused pointedly.

Milton gave his brother a bittersweet smile but shook his head; he reached up to scratch behind Nightshade's horned head, the dragon having loyally taken up residence on his shoulder as if the little dragon had been doing so for years and not the past few weeks whenever Milton took the time to visit Elenore. "If that's what she chooses to do with her life then so be it, I'll help her out wherever I can, with overjoyed enthusiasm. But the truth of the matter is that she'll be having a difficult enough time getting a degree in a discipline that she loves along with dealing with that blasted Thorn Clan and taking care of her kingdom on top of that, it hurts me to say but there is just no room in her life for a fairytale or for this school when she becomes of proper human age."

"Good answer." Giles praised. "And we will be perfectly fine finding someone to replace us, the Grimm line is far from dying out thanks to you and Elenore we will still have to keep looking though, perhaps at the very least we can find a relative of Elenore's who would be willing to take over for a while until a more permanent solution could be found, but we do have more options now, and we have more family, it doesn't have to be just us anymore."

"That is rather comforting in these uncertain times." Milton agreed, feeling the weight of his age as he stood up, Nightshade giving a contented hum as he shifted on the large man's shoulders.

It had been a tiring afternoon, between having to politely question the queen's motives towards Mira without letting the woman know that he knew that the whole debacle had not been a mere training exorcise at all, while also having to find a better explanation than what the queen had given to explain to his students and staff why no one was to go near the ponds often used for ice skating in winter (he highly doubted that saying that it was for the vague reason of him being the Headmaster and therefore had his own reasons would deter anybody, in fact Giles pointed out that it may cause students to investigate on principle), he did not want students running back in horror because they spotted Snow White's people dredging up the shredded remains of a man and a whole bunch of illegal weapons.

Raven and Mira suggested that he say that someone had introduced an invasive species of fish or algae into the lake and that all proper WLKP (Wild Life Kingdom Protection) protocols were put in place to ensure that the rest of the school's wilderness areas were not contaminated as well. The suggestion being both reasonable and highly believable since they would have to clean the lake from toxic potions that had leached into the water from broken illegal magical weapons, was of course used, and naturally with the high number of students in the nature lover's club and beast classes the students actually respected his word and had even helped in cautioning others to stay out of that part of the forest.

It was a fascinating thing, people who normally went out of their way to get into trouble for once since Legacy Day actually listening to him (granted they were mostly listening to his granddaughter, Miss White, and Miss Shards but nobody had questioned him this time around! That meant a great deal)!

Mira, the poor girl, appeared to be utterly petrified, even though she was doing her damn best to hide it, of the fact that she had somehow found herself roped into the middle of this whole mess and of Snow White in particular as far as Milton could tell.

Well this certainly was some rich irony as far as Milton was concerned, the same woman who had once waxed on and on about the evils of the Evil Queen and the dreaded place where she hailed from had instilled real bonnafied fear of herself to a civilian of said dreaded place.

He only hoped that no more unwanted surprises transpired tomorrow.

XXX

"That was utterly exhausting." Clawstorm grumbled into the guest bed as Maid Marion tended to the welts on the woman's back and sides. It had been a busy day of her constantly being dragged around by Snow White to show the school populace how to play a dragon game, advising tomorrows tournament volunteers on how to show off their newly adopted dragon chicks in the cutest-in-show contest, and then living the ordeal of nearly being forced to spend the night in Snow White's guest chambers, thankfully Apple had swooped in just as her mother was getting a little too friendly and spirited her away for a shopping spree in the village and far, far away from the queen. At the very least Clawstorm did not have to be dragged anywhere private with old Snowball and her highness was thankfully discrete enough that she played along with simply just using Mira as a means to get good publicity and did not insist upon any undo attention until the end of the day.

Apple at least had been sweet enough to apologize for her mother's overzealous behavior.

"What's exhaustin' is seein' you have to get wrapped back up like a mummy every few weeks!" The human grouched. "Honestly old friend you get out of prison and the first thing you do to celebrate it is to get batted around like the kitten's yarn ball?"

"It's not my fault that people seem to be hitting me a lot harder now than they were a few years ago!" The witch defended.

"Uh huh." Maid Marion said flatly.

"At any rate I really have to thank you guys for letting me crash here for a spell, old Snowball has been acting very suspiciously and I don't think that I'd be able to sleep in the dorms as long as she's nearby." The witch sighed.

"She's definitely up to something." The Big Bad Wolf grouched from outside the doorway, keeping his back respectfully to the room. "She smells funny too, like being around you has made her decade or something."

"That is definitely suspicious." Clawstorm grimaced since in the past the queen was only ever really happy when the witch was miserable.

"Maybe she wants to make sure that you won't out her for her crime of aiding a plot to destroy your kingdom, or maybe she's hoping that she can win her daughter's good graces back through you, or maybe se genuinely wants to avoid war just as much as the rest of us." Red Riding Hood proposed, leaning in her home's guest bedroom's doorway with a used spoon full of cake batter in one hand and handing the bowl to her husband with the other.

"I hope so." Clawstorm sighed tiredly. "It's just too disconcerting knowing that Snowy cares about _knowing me_ to the point where she can see right through my disguise. I'm just glad that Raven is going back to the academy as we speak for her post testing celebration school activities, she's better off being as far away from the blast zone as possible… even though I'm going to have to abandon my hopes that little Apple was keeping a cool lid on things between that Thorn girl and my kid, apparently the princess is considering the benefits of being a fairy and witch's consort."

There was a slight choking sound from the hall. "Really? Straight-laced little Miss Apple White?" Bad Wolf sputtered.

"The one and only." Clawstorm sighed again. "At least my daughter actually has some taste, Apple is a decent girl with a better-than-average sense for dragging people out of her mother's clutches. I should make a note of asking her if she has any clue as to why Snowball is acting so out of character."

"While you're at it can you ask if she knows how my son and that nice Charming boy he's dating are doin'? I try asking Sparrow and he blusters about how I'm sooo embarrassing! Queen Charming is having the exact same issue with her boy too!" Maid Marion sniffed as if affronted at the thought of her child not being all that willing to gossip about his private relationships to his mother.

Clawstorm grinned wickedly into the comforter. "I live to snitch for only my closest of friends."

"I'm just glad that I don't have to worry about such things from my girls." Bad Wolf gruffed from the hallway.

Clawstorm snorted, trying to smother her laughter while the man's wife gave him a disbelieving look.

"Sweetie, you do know that our Cerise has been dating Briar Beauty since thronecomming and I'm almost positive that Ramona is trying to work up the courage to ask her roommate out." Red Riding Hood informed exasperatedly.

"They **_what_**?"

"They talked about all of this to the both of us dear." The hooded woman shook her head solemnly. "Cerise had Miss Beauty over for dinner that one time and it was a big deal! How could you have missed that?"

"I thought that our little pup was just nervous that she knew our secret!" Bane cried out.

"No… she was nervous because she was introducing her first serious relationship to her parents." Simone intoned calmly.

"Hey Bane!" Clawstorm called. "Just be glad that you don't have the Evil Fairy hinting at your daughter to give her grandchildren or run the risk of psycho Snow White being your daughter's mother-in-law! You hardly have room to complain here!"

XXX

"I'm telling you that there is something really off about my mom!" Apple insisted in horror to the occupants of the carriage. "She can't stop talking about Mira, she even almost tried to get Mira to stay with her for a private dinner and stay over night too!"

"Little ol' Mira must have run her mouth raw doing that polite I-am-but-a-mere-plain-and-simple-common-witch routine." Faybelle snorted. "So your mom's a fan of the school's favorite neutral party and polite pauper it's not that unusual for people to act all giddy over a celebrity."

"It is when you are my mom, she always prides herself on people fawning over her and not the other way around, plus there's the fact that Mira was totally mortified by the attention! When I rescued her by taking her shopping in the village she kept hauntingly commenting on how peculiar it was for someone like my mother to be so enthusiastically friendly towards someone from her self-proclaimed arch enemy's homeland!" Apple exclaimed.

"That does sound like Mira was pretty upset about it." Raven concurred sleepily, her head resting heavily on Apple's shoulder, it was early afternoon in the Middle Sea region but the odd hours that Raven had been sleeping in the past three days plus her late nights studying were taking their toll. "But to be fair it's not uncommon for those born in lower social standing to be weary of monarchs… you have to admit that we can get pretty strange more often than not…"

"The people you hang out with from your kingdoms don't treat you that way, in fact their downright friendly in a way that is uncommon for people like them to be addressing someone of higher standing." Apple pointed out, there were a lot of foreign exchange students at the academy who were either from the King and Queen lands or refugees from the neighboring four troublesome kingdoms who had been given government issued work and school visas, it seemed like every one of those people went out of their way to treat Raven like she was a long lost relative or friend.

"On both sides of my family history it is not uncommon to find a disguised Good King or Evil Queen down at the local pubs getting drunk with the locals and making fun of parliament officials just like they were ordinary people, it's practically tradition." Raven mumbled into Apple's quilted jacket. "Is how we keep an eye out for the general wellbeing of our people, an' on my mother's side it is believed that it helps ground us to the magic of the people an' makes us better rulers, but mostly most of the family does it for the beer and the chance at improper behavior."

"Ah… how utterly charming." Apple intoned flatly making Faybelle snicker in her seat across from them causing Nevermore, who was sitting beside the fairy while still in her harness to parrot the noises that Faybelle was making while also attempting to nibble on her offered snacks. "But seriously, there is definitely something wrong with my mom!"

"I'm sure that Mira can handle whatever the queen will throw at her, she did pretty well in keeping us out last night after all." Faybelle grumbled as if she were put out by the whole thing and not just a teeny bit impressed that such a polite goody-goody could talk circles around a fairy who had been trained in the art of talking circles around people.

"Not that anything would have happened since I was dead on my feet." Raven tried to give the two the stink eye, or she thought she did but in reality the most that happened was that her heavy-lidded eyes just closed even more firmly than they already were. "Just give me like ten 'er so hours, den we'll see..." Raven mumbled as she slid a little further into the embrace of sleep.

"We'll remind you that you said that." Apple promised even as Faybelle seemed to perk up at the news.

XXX

 _I don't think that I can do this!_ Clawstorm thought to herself as she felt her entire body involuntarily freeze mid-way through raising her fork to her mouth.

"Ah, so her fair highness wishes for my presence directly after I am finished with breakfast." Mira states faintly putting her fork down and smoothing her powder blue cotton gloved hands down the skirt to her yellow and light blue dress that Apple had kindly bought for her the previous day, the dress along with the fancy yellow hat with a short blue veil pinned to one side of her head sort of make her feel like one of those socialite ladies from Londoom who have tea and tiny little scare-cakes while discussing murder mysteries and town gossip, except the outfit definitely has a fairytale feel to it and lacks the charming little goulish touches from the monster realm.

"She says that it's ridiculous for the resident hexpert in dragon riding and dragon games to just sit in the bleachers as a spectator, she wants you to sit beside her at the royal viewing balcony and watch the proceedings." Blondie informs apologetically, honestly looking guilty for being the bearer for unwanted news. "It will put us at a slight disadvantage not having you there to be the commenting spectator but seeing as this is a practice game the queen figured that the rest of the news crew could also use the practice. Snow White would however prefer it if you were to show off Apple's dragon chick and then Legend before the best in show competition starts so that the audience can see how to properly present both young and adult dragons properly."

Hmm obviously Snowy wanted to talk in private if she was willing to forgo the opportunity to be part of the commenting on the first ever practice game over the loudspeaker. At least the woman had the presence of mind not to seem too suspicious by letting Clawstorm as Mira be in some way apart of the activities even though it was plainly obvious to the witch that the human woman appeared to want to hog all of her time for some indescribable reason. "Will you guys be needing my notes on the name for different uncommon plays and game terminology?"

"Yes please." Blondie nodded noting that the rest of the news team seemed to be giving the witch odd looks for appearing to be so downtrodden for being chosen by _the_ Snow White to basically be at the queen's side all day. "I understand why you are so nervous, your homeland's monarch being the queen's arch nemesis and all." The reporter commented glancing pointedly sidelong at the confused faces of the rest of the news club and a few stray on lookers.

"Is that why you've been so worried about all of this?" Dexter asks sounding sympathetic.

"It is important that relations between this kingdom and my homeland strengthen and we could use the good publicity, I-I'm fearing that I may run the risk of making a fool out of myself-…" Clawstorm pretended to admit and it was only half a lie really, her country did need the good publicity and she was worried about being made a bloody fool of yet again by Snow White who took perverse delight in her suffering regardless of who got between the crossfire, so hell yeah she was bloody nervous!

"Waitaminit, you are nervous about making a fool of yourself?" Briar barked a laugh. "You're little Miss polite and proper self-conduct! There's no way! I mean, girl, you still refer to your closest friends as lords and ladies, and you freaking curtsy better than most princesses! Hex you act more like a proper princess than most princesses come to think of it, you'll be fine!"

"You'll do great I know you will." Humphrey cheered in with a besotted shy blush painting his nose. "And you do look very ladylike in that dress, bright colors really suit you."

"I will do my very best." Mira smiled bravely but despite her best efforts there was still a haunted note in her grey eyes.

XXX

Blondie was concerned for her friend.

As a reporter Blondie was all about telling the people the truth and exposing secrets and good stories alike but because she was a good reporter and grade A sleuth she also knew the power and importance of information. The fact that Clawstorm was willing to trust Blondie (who was also unfortunately known to the school on the unfounded reputation as the second most untrustworthy person to know other's secrets right behind Cedar Wood) with so much meant the world to the girl, it wasn't often that even her closest friends told her secrets so for the older witch to trust that Blondie would not only be competent enough to understand that in a situation as dangerous as this information to the public (and therefore easily accessed by the enemy) should keep a delicate balance between keeping away from neglecting the people's rights for important information regarding their homelands and family safety while also not releasing information that could fall into use by the enemy and thus cause harm to the common people's homelands and families, but to also come to Blondie as if she were a trusted confidant and ask for help and guidance (which personally Blondie thought that Clawstorm was doing just fine on her own and being the older of two therefore gave the witch more experience in this) was something that Blondie knew that the witch had not considered lightly and that the amount of trust that someone like her was willing to put into Blondie to help get this right was… Blondie didn't have the words.

And also the witch was helping Blondie big time with her homework; thanks to Clawstorm's help Blondie's last report card looked far better than it had the previous quarter.

Blondie hadn't had enough time alone with the witch to get her side of things but Blondie could tell that Clawstorm was highly worried, scared even, and from the brief gestures and that hushed, hurried whisper in the hall when no one was looking told Blondie what she already knew; that the attack on the queen the other day had been real and somehow Snow White had found out her secret and yet was for some reason or another willing to keep it a secret. Knowing the woman's past history with Clawstorm that was cause to be extremely suspicious.

So since there wasn't much that anybody could do but wait to see what happened Blondie opted to show her friend as much support as possible right now.

"Thank you." Mira said as Blondie finished up with the witch's makeup, behind her stood Poppy who had just secured the last pin to hold the little blue flowers to Mira's cascading red hair. "My hands are a trifle unsteady at the moment."

"Hey no prob, this bit of work will do wonders for the publicity for the shop." Poppy assured, putting supplies away.

"You've done this before right?" Blondie asked calmly. "So just forget about the queen and the politics and just let what comes naturally from your experience help you out through the show, and I'm confident that you will find a way to persevere over the willies in regards to sitting next to the queen. I believe in you. You'll do just fine doing what has to be done, you have lots of practice and bravery in that department."

Mira took a deep, calming breath and smiled up at the reporter. "Thanks, I needed that. Do you feel up to a spot of tea and cookies tomorrow while I help you with schoolwork? I personally could use a touch of normal to calm down after all of this."

"Sure, maybe we can even do that tonight if our schedules allow it." Blondie nodded knowing that Clawstorm desperately wanted to talk partly about what was going on but would mostly want to have a conversation that was directed at other, happier subjects, as was often the case when the two of them talked, Clawstorm had a lot of funny stories to tell.

"Good luck." Blondie waves as Mira walks out to the field with a little golden and white dragon in tow while she hurries over to the announcement balcony.

While Apple has of yet to find a dragon riding outfit that would suit Mira best seeing as that most outfits available must be tailored and they tended to follow a fairytale theme which would make it difficult to customize one for Mira since she had _no real story theme_ , so yesterday Mira had made due with a rather ugly brown- _and outdated in fashion_ \- spare outfit from storage as she instructed others on how to fly on the backs of dragons, but today since the witch would not be riding the dragons herself she got to wear her new dress which she sports splendidly as she patiently leads first the small dragon chick around on it's lead expertly distracting it with a fire proof toy or a bit of food to keep it from running wild on her while the judges look it over, and then just to show how to show off an adult dragon Mira then leads Legend around, both witch and larger beast moving as one in an elegant choreographed dance that best displayed Legend's scales and agility as well as the rider's ability to lead the beast while it was on the ground, much to the audience's awe and delight.

Clawstorm may be able to act like a plain and simple commoner fairly well but there was still this way that she held herself in moments such as this that was definitely that of a true queen and leader, a force to be reckoned with as well as a powerful protector willing to sacrifice everything and live in danger just as long as she could do so to ensure the safety of her family and people.

Blondie felt instinctually that if there was anyone who could save everybody from all of this it was most certainly her.

Blondie trusted that instinct unquestioningly.

XXX

"A training exorcise?" Kline stared in disbelief at the report handed to him. "That's what they're calling it? What happened to the men? Even if they failed in their mission the evidence that they were to leave behind when they all were terminated should have at least been enough to rile up the fairest of them all into action against the Queen Lands."

"The sensors do indicate that the men were all terminated, however we can't gather much more information than that from the school due to the Grimm Brother's nearly airtight control on the information that get passed in and out, all the chatter from the students to their parents has been about the Dragon Games sir. His lordship has attempted to send more men to the area to report on what has happened but thus far no men have come back and we can't pinpoint the remote sensors, there has been no indication that the men have been terminated by the self-destructive devises, the signals have just… disappeared." The ancient butler informed Kline with a polite bow of the head and an air of strict professionalism.

"So either they are not taking the bait or they are arranging things outside of the public eye." Kline massaged his aching temples. "How many men did his lordship send out to gather information?"

"Six sir."

"Six?" Kline gaped in outrage, well that explained why they didn't hear back from those men. "That is an awful lot of men to send on a mere few hours information gathering mission."

"His lordship wanted to be as thorough as possible and if the men had found anything untoward he wanted as many bodies as he could send right now to try another attempt at causing unrest between the two kingdoms." The butler's professional tone seemed to be undercut by a strong current of exasperation, and then the man appeared to catch himself because he amended in a slightly apologetic tone. "His lordship only wishes to bring back concrete results sir."

 _Regardless of tact or revealing our intentions_ … the disguised warlock thought poisonously. "I'm sure he does." Kline nodded seriously knowing from the feeling in his gut and the evidence presented to him that Snow White's forces had captured all six men. "Will you give the order to continue to search for their sensors beacons and if they are found anywhere near the school or a secure complex in Ever After, they are to have their uniforms detonate."

"I do suppose that it has to be done sir." The butler nodded gravely, indicating that he too had come to the same conclusion. "Must I tell his lordship or shall I kindly… be discrete upon this matter?"

Kline smiled a sad, kind smile at the man, he always liked this butler, he may work for fools but he was far from being one himself, and he was loyal to those who treated him with proper respect, he'd have to speak to his father about sparing this one when the other lords took the fall, it always paid to have competent people working with you. "I can always trust you to be discrete my good man, I hope that you have a pleasant day."

"And I hope the same to you sir." The butler nodded. "Your business associate from the sword branch of the factory has asked to see you after this meeting is finished, it sounded rather urgent sir, shall I send him in?"

Kline sat up straighter. "Yes, if you would please."

A few moments later a cloaked figure walked in indeed looking rather urgent.

"All listening devises and spy-spells have been removed father." Kline assured the figure in front of him.

There was a shiver within the depths of the deep hood and when it was pulled back it revealed Tomak's true face without a trace of glamour.

"Father?" Kline sat up in alarm at the older warlock's unusual _lack_ of paranoia, at showing his own face here, in the nest of their foolhardy puppets.

"I cannot find them my son!" Tomak's voice was on the edge of panic. "They have taken both your mother and sister away and I cannot find them!"


	48. Chapter 48

"You caught _six_ ninja goons?" Clawstorm asked in disbelief, her previous feelings of uneasiness towards having to sit beside Snow White evaporating when, blessedly, the woman had decided to get right down to business first thing before the first dragon practice game even started. "That is utter lunacy! Why risk getting caught when the past mission already went sideways?"

"That's what my people have been asking them before we noticed that the equipment that we have been using to keep them from blowing up has triggered a mechanism the prevents them from being taken out of their clothing, we tried to warn them, however all but one have believed us and were willing to have one of the golems that you had given control over to Anton to help them out of their uniforms. For some reason the idea of being ripped out of their pants by a jabberwocky skeleton has put them on edge." Snow White informed with a shake of her head.

 _Fair enough._ Clawstorm mentally conceded.

"We also have the woman you described in custody." Snow White reports with a trace of an unidentified emotion.

"That was awfully quick." Clawstorm blinks Mira's yellow painted eyelids.

"I do aim for efficiency in an emergency. We have identified the woman through royalty records as one Joanna Lovelace, the surviving widow to the late Lord Lovelace who has been flagged as a person under suspicion of numerous crimes, the worst of which is murder and beating his wife, she had reportedly disappeared after her husband's suspicious death and until now, or more likely, until you came around, nobody knew what happened to her. She had a girl with her as well, wearing magic dampening jewelry to mask most of her scent as a witch, we of course replaced the girl's dampeners with stronger ones of our own and are holding her in protective custody with child services." Snow White grimaced. "There is something off about that child. The witches working for me could feel it, can't you Anton?"

Anton who stood dutifully the throne where Mira sat nodded. "It is true your dark ladyship, the concentration of pre-adult power inside this little girl's tiny body is to the point where even I, a warlock with no medical background, can tell that it is… abnormal, borderline unhealthy most likely. The healers won't know what to make of it until they do some more tests on young Miss Clementine."

Something clicked in the back of Clawstorm's mind, along with a memory of some information she had encountered while doing her collaborative research with different specialists who were keenly interested on the potential uses for her micro-talismans, one research project in particular came to mind which still left her with a haunted bittersweet feeling and had kept her up at night for weeks afterward.

 _It couldn't be…_ "A little witchling named _Clementine_ was found with Joanna Lovelace?"

"Yes she was residing in a rented cottage house in the woods just outside of the village where the Council Chambers are." Anton nodded, watching Mira in curiosity.

 _There is no way…_ "Did this girl also carry a certain… familial resemblance to Joanna Lovelace? Like blonde hair and blue eyes? Maybe even a birthmark on her neck that's kinda in a crescent moon shape?" Clawstorm asked her tone slightly thick with emotion.

"Yes, in fact that is exactly what she looks like." Anton blinked. "Do you know who she is?"

Mira turned her head when Blondie announced that the proceedings will be starting in five minutes, in the background the witch could hear one of the student vendors shouting out offers for hot dogs and soda.

"I might, but I won't know unless I get a good look at her, is there a way that I could see this witchling sometime in the next few days?" Clawstorm swallowed, feeling slightly faint.

Snow White blinked in surprise. "Actually I was just going to ask you if you could make an appearance today after the game since the mercenaries that you saved from being blown up yesterday want to meet the witch who saved them and ask her a few question before they make a deal with us. They seem prepared to turn on whoever sent them. During yesterday's excitement my people were able to gather as many leaper sticks as they could to prevent the panicked mercenaries from escaping."

"Good." Clawstorm stated with conviction. She could feel as bitter and as grim towards the other woman all she wanted for those spiteful things that Snow White had put her through, however despite everything if one good thing could be said about Snow What it was that she was very good at putting her immense resources to effective use when there was a time of emergency and it almost appeared that everyone who worked for her was competent at the very least. "Do you suppose that we might be able to arrange a way to get the rest of them to turn on their masters?"

"…I may have an idea or two." Snow White admitted an all too familiar scheming glint forming in her eyes and Clawstorm, with a shiver of revulsion, was merely glad that the woman was not looking at her this time around.

XXX

"I think that the Headmaster put a curse on her." Faybelle informed Apple as the fairy examined an unconscious Raven lying limply under the sheets of the bed.

"What makes you say that?" Apple inquires.

"Well… it's still just a theory that he was the one to put this on her but there is definitely the faint scent of… well it's not exactly magic but it's definitely something that isn't her own." Faybelle mused, peering down at her unconscious wife. "It took me a while to get a taste of it but there is definitely something very odd with how one minute she's being all receptive and affectionate and the next she's either suddenly extremely hungry, or she literally falls over and is sound asleep before she even hits the ground it's like someone's gone and put some sort of… spell on her that is way more effective than any old chastity belt!"

"…You know, Raven is starting to suspect that we've got nothing but one track minds." Apple pointed out carefully.

"That's because we do." Faybelle pointed out truthfully.

"That may be true…" Apple coughed, blushing slightly. "But my point is that… if what you sense is indeed a deterrent placed upon Raven to prevent such… activities from happening… I just don't think that at this point that she's going to believe us… or take us very seriously."

"She is a warm-blooded young adult in the beginnings of her prime, I don't see how this could not be seen as something moderately serious at the very least." Faybelle stated, one eyebrow rising.

"What I mean is that we haven't even taken her out on a proper date, you know, with flowers, movie, dinner, long walks in public, romantic overtures… the type of lovey dovey stuff that Raven has always talked about in the past whenever we occasionally brought up the whole… why she was so into certain romance movie things and not others." Apple waved her hand vaguely, in reality it had only been one time that Apple had become curious as to why Raven preferred to watch romantic movies on her phone and not in the village and Raven had explained that the movies that they tended to show in the village more often than not had content that was rather offensive to her personal beliefs on what a real healthy relationship was.

Part of Apple had wanted Raven to elaborate but when she had opened her mouth it was to tell Raven the same old lines about Raven becoming the Evil Queen and how it was her destiny not to have a happy romantic ending and Raven demanded heatedly on the topic of just what Apple had expected her to do long after Apple had been crowned queen or if Apple had even bothered to consider that Raven would have a life far away from the princess but then had just sighed, apologized for her tone and rolled over in her bed so that her back was to Apple and her earphones were going full blast in case the princess had wanted to argue further.

And that had been that (well… the whole incident with the True Heart's Dance had pushed the matter further past the point of no return), up until she informed Apple about her marriage to Faybelle, Raven had made it a point to never discuss romantic topics when she was alone with Apple in the dorm and between the thick, heavy silence that followed the brief attempts Apple had made towards asking Raven about any potential crushes she had or anything about romance really, and Raven's painfully deliberate excuses to get out of the room, Apple had decided to just never touch upon that subject ever again (because at least an argumentive Raven talked to her, a silent Raven who walked away was positively awful).

"She's the type to actually like that romantic stuff before the do is done? Not, like say… after? Would after count? I mean it still counts even though one thing proceeds the other." Faybelle asked a little hopefully.

Apple squeezed her eyes shut and made an exasperated noise at the fairy. "It's more romantic to be courted Fay." The princess stated in annoyance. "And don't bring up the whole different species and cultures excuse because I know enough to be wise to the fact that fairies have complicated courting rituals that often involve dates before anything else."

"Yes but we don't have to observe it." Faybelle argued with a pout.

"Neither do humans or witches." Apple informed coolly. "But that really depends on the individuals involved doesn't it?"

"It's just that if my mother finds out from her numerous contacts that I'm actually contemplating getting actually serious about all of this she's going to be pushing for grandchildren and scheming up ways for the clan to benefit further from all of this and this is all just… very new." Faybelle despaired over the sudden persistent knocking and ringing of the doorbell in the background. "Did I mention the grandchildren bit? She is very into the grandchildren bit. I mean right now she just thinks that I'm trying to worm my way further into the good graces of two potentially very useful allies… not consider an active romantic involvement."

"It's possible to have dates outside the public eye." Apple conceded as the two of them walked down the stairs. "I have an invested interest in keeping mum with my activities too, in my kingdom the use of girls my age and of proper royal upbringing to be entangled in romantic relationships outside of our pre-arranged betrothals, not to mention even the mere contemplation of a physical relationship out side of marriage to not only one but two people, is… well… not abnormal to be honest but with a mother like mine…"

"Ah." Faybelle said simply and nodded. Nothing more had to be said, which was just as well since Apple had opened the front door.

Charlotte immediately leaned against the doorframe. "Fetch your blushing bride cousin, the human girl can come too I suppose, the Evil Fairy wants to sew this getting hitched thing all up in a neat little bow."

Elenore Queen rolled up behind the witch and peered up at the fairy and princess. "It would seem as though my granddaughter will be eloping at the last minute, I didn't even have time to put a pin in my hat!"

"Apple, Fay, I hear voices- Grandmother? Charlotte? What are you two doing here?" Raven sleepily demands as she stumbles clad in only a sleep shirt and Nevermore draped across her shoulders to the stairway.

"Quirieup!" Nevermore cheeps brightly, taking flight towards the elder witch's outstretched hands, passing Faybelle silently telegraphing a "see? I told you something was off seing as how she slept right through the two of us talking right over her but when someone comes to the door…!" to a bewildered Apple.

XXX

The Headmaster was understandably reluctant to let Mira take a "private" interview with Snow White after the practice Dragon Game was over and all the congratulatory speeches finished, Clawstorm suspected with a growing horror that the old man was becoming… almost _fond_ of the Mira persona. At least to the point to where he felt the need to step protectively between herself and Snow White before telling Mira in a kind, fatherly tone to please watch over Nightshade for him while " _The Adults_ " talk things out and gently sent her back to her little friends.

In her youth Clawstorm would have put up a righteous fuss over the kit-gloved treatment, however being a mother herself- albeit one who had been separated from her child for seven years- she couldn't honestly say that she wouldn't have done the same thing if she was in his situation.

She honestly didn't know what was worse; that she agreed with her father's methods or that she was actually hoping that her old nemesis would prevail in her task of convincing the Headmaster to let her go with the woman, alone, and for a long period of time.

She definitely knew that the old man's sudden… protectiveness against the supposedly fairest queen of them all was very disturbing.

Not to mention being nearly two decades too late.

And what's more the fact that her father had brought her mother's dragon to these proceedings himself only proved her suspicions that his recent cheerful mood had to do with things going rather well between her parents. Very disturbing indeed.

The witch shook off the dreary revelations when Nightshade, her mother's beloved childhood pet dragon affectionately bumped his tiny head against the side of hers and chirruped at her in the way that he only reserved for his own hatchlings, Raven, and herself. Being both a dragon and her mother's head familiar her disguise would not so easily fool Nightshade.

He had remembered her.

The woman blinked back tears as she returned the long missed gently affectionate head bump, oh how she missed her family, the life she had before it all went wrong…

"What is that all about?" Blondie met Clawstorm before anyone else and murmured into her ear when the witch reached the news club table her shallow nod indicating that she had noticed the Headmaster and the queen hissing tensely at each other.

"Important talks she wants to have with me. Privately. I'll be fine don't worry. Tell you 'bout it later." Clawstorm murmured back, carefully keeping a smile in place as the others from the table got up to surround her with questions.

It took much longer than expected for Snow White to turn up to fetch her, while Clawstorm did not mind spending some quality time with her mother's dragon who had not only helped to raise her in his own dragon-like way but had also greeted her with such love and warmth that the witch had to pause more than a few times to keep her emotions under control before the tears of gratitude and happy memories could successfully spill from her eyes, however Mira's cheeks hurt from having to smile too much while Humphrey and Cupid went wild with taking pictures and Clawstorm had to sharply remind herself to stay focused as Blondie interviewed her and the teams that had come off the field after they had put the visiting dragons back into their guest stalls.

"Preserving endangered species of dragons are not just important for the sake of preserving our ancestor's history for future generations to enjoy." Mira spoke into Blondie's microphone, Nightshade nuzzling her chin as she spoke. "They are an integrated part of the natural eco-system, take away the dragon and the delicate balance that keeps this eco-system running smoothly will be upended in ways that could prove not only detrimental to the things we take advantage of every day but could also cause irreversible damage. For instance when the tiny nectar-eating feathered dragons went extinct so did many other plants that it helped pollinate, and as a consequence, many other animals disappeared too, the beloved golden apples that are grown in a select few acres here and there throughout the realms used to be abundant everywhere, reportedly yielding crops of several tons of fruit every year, however when the feathered dragon was hunted to extinction for their feathers and their eyes for uses in either decoration or for potions, it was only those who had the foresight to send workers out with tiny paint brushes to pollinate the trees themselves that had saved the golden apples from becoming completely extinct, however the tree's pollinating season is dreadfully short and instead of tons of apple crops we can only hope for a few thousand yield each year, if that, from each acreage."

"It is because of the importance of preserving dragon species and other animals in our realms that I will be detailing plans to Miss Mira Shards shortly in a private interview about doing my part in aiding preservation groups in both Ever After and the Queen… and _King_ kingdoms." Snow White came up behind the witch sounding as cheerful as always… save for the mention of the King realm weirdly enough.

Clawstorm nodded to Blondie when the girl mouthed "good luck, call if you need help" to her before turning around and began to walk towards the campus with Snow White almost uncomfortably close to her side. When she stopped to hand Nightshade off to her father the Headmaster smiled a faux apologetic smile towards Snow White and took the witch aside, out of earshot while Giles ran interference.

"Call my secretary if things get out of hand." He murmured gruffly as he handed her a slip of paper. "If things feel off with her or if she makes you feel uncomfortable in any way, say that you have to visit the bathroom and call. You are only there to discuss her plans for dragons and nature, nothing else if you don't feel up to discussing it. Remember what Giles had told you a few weeks ago; we protect our students as much as we can from political intrigue."

Mira blinked owlishly up at the man. "Thank you." She whispered and slid the paper safely under her glove. "But I-I do not fear her." She tried to sound assuring even as the tremor of the thought that she may have to be left alone with the other woman, as well as the growing feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach, made it to her voice.

"Then why are you shaking like a leaf?" Her father asked.

She did not answer, just merely smiled bravely and walked away.

XXX

"I mean like what was up with him? He acted as though I was going to do villainous stuff to you; I'm a fair maiden! Er- fair queen now I suppose. But still the queen of Ever After for crying out loud! Seriously; what is with him?" Snow White ranted, Clawstorm could hear the other woman pace the room from behind the dressing panels as Anton helped her into her adult-sized clothing the three of them having transported to Ever After's winter royal palace some time ago.

"What did he give you anyway?" Snow White asked. "I saw him give you some paper or something."

"It was the number for his secretary, I was to call in case you decided to put Mira Shards through any more surprise "training exorcises" today." Clawstorm spoke smoothly. "He didn't appreciate the scare from the other day apparently."

"Well neither did I." Snow White sniffed.

"Am I wearing one of Charming's outfits?" Clawstorm asked as she stepped stiffly out from behind the dressing panels, her injuries from the last battle making her feel sore all over.

She wore a pair of tight-fitting black pants with silver and purple trim and a matching smartly fitted prince-like blazer that matched, it was… oddly very un-Evil Queen like, which was strange considering her current hostess.

Prince Charming stood up from his seat to stand beside his wife. "We figured that since you prefer the freedom to change between genders that you would prefer to wear something… a little bit more appropriate."

Clawstorm blinked at the man before turning back to the grandly large mirror with a ridiculously heavy looking golden frame in front of her, experimentally shifting to her male form… just to see how it looked.

It _was_ a rather flattering outfit for both genders.

A collective intake of appreciative breath caught the warlock's attention, Malstorm turning around only to be met with the (expected) sight of the crowned prince and Anton eyeing the male form with surprised interest, while Snow White (unexpectedly, and creepily) did the exact same, only she wasn't surprised looking at all…

…She looked almost _hungry_.

Clawstorm quickly changed back into being female. Then as an afterthought, ran her fingers gently over her flower adorned hair to turn it red since that was the color that she had assumed that Snow White's goons had seen her hair in, and she felt a little better having at least that one bit of defensive glamour protecting her identity (even though she guessed that half the staff probably was expecting her by now…).

"I do believe that we have some ninja goons to talk to." The witch coughed, wringing her hands almost painfully behind her back as she fought to keep her professional cool around the king and queen. Acting all polite and cooperative may be the most surefire way to ensure that things were done properly and that maybe she could finally end this nightmare, however the parts of her that was still the young mother who would do anything to defend her family and the heartbroken little girl who just wanted the bullying to stop demanded that she get angry, speak her mind, even walk away and leave Snow White to the fate of being ambushed, perhaps even terminated by the same people that she had helped-

But the part of her that was still the young Queen, still the loyal protector to the heirs of the White royal family wisely tamped down upon the impulse to scream and leave. There was a job to do, a family and a homeland to protect, a new, dangerous enemy to defeat.

For that she'd gladly swallow her pride and allow the old enemy to dress her up and treat her as if they had always been the _"best" of friends_.

Even though Clawstorm had stopped caring about old Snowball's fate long ago… or so she told herself as she attempted to forget her act of destroying the incriminating records linking the queen to her help in creating whatever it was that sent the _freaking_ _sky_ falling upon innocent people… all for the simple reason of putting one up on the witch who just wanted to be left alone and enjoy her wacky happy family after the story had finished.

The witch inhaled deeply and continued to bite her tongue as the four of them walked along the expensively decorated white and gold hallways.

XXX

The dungeon room was a large, well lit, and well-guarded concrete box with a huge one-way mirror affixed above an average human man's height adorning the center of one wall and a metal table bolted to the center of the floor with what looked like some really flimsy chairs for the prisoners to sit on.

When she entered, alone save for the numerous dwarves lining the walls, four buff men in grey jumpsuits stood up and bowed politely to her.

"Hello, you boys asked to see me?" She greeted, standing in front of the men's table as they all took that as their cue to sit down.

"You're the Evil Queen?" A younger man from the rest that she guessed was the one who had volunteered to have his death-suit ripped off of him spoke up, discretely one of his collogues kicked his shin in warning.

"I haven't gone by that particular title since I fulfilled my obligations to my story's princess." Clawstorm was tempted, oh so very tempted, to tell the young man that she had never signed the damn Book of dumb Legends but held her tongue yet again. Best to stick only to the point. "In my pursuits in academia I felt that it was best to go by a different name all together, one can't exactly be taken seriously in the work of _curing_ poisons and illnesses when one is also called _the Evil Queen_. I've never been able to figure out why but apparently even in other dimensions people tend to get so very jittery about it."

"What name do you go by now?" Asked what Clawstorm believed to be the elected leader of the group as she pulled out a chair and sat down, elbows on the tabletop with her fingers interlaced.

"Clawstorm Grimmbook."

At her words all four men sat up straighter than they already were.

"You're the one who created the talismans that can be injected into the bloodstream?" A man wearing what looked like prescription goggles breathed in the stunned silence.

"Indeed. Turns out, just because one is born into a fairytale villain family does not mean that we are all programmed to be heartless or cruel towards others or are incapable of finding personal reward in helping others." Clawstorm intoned dryly. "Imagine my irritation when I discovered that someone had hired a two-bit lackey to steal my research and create several versions of talismans out of stolen tech that was meant for helping young children survive leukemia but was instead used to try to eliminate my family."

"But Doctor Grimmbook is still very active in the mad-scientist community-… even though she- you were trapped behind the mirrors…" Realization dawned upon the goggle wearing man. "You found a way to keep in contact with your lab, to continue your research even while imprisoned…"

The witch smiled self-depreciatively. Just how much did the enemy know about her Monster Realm life? "I had to do _something_ to keep myself from getting bored, couldn't very well escape and cause all sorts of ruckus until I knew what I was dealing with and how to keep my family and people safe."

"So the rumors… what they are saying in the newsfeeds is true? You aren't really evil?" The leader spoke carefully.

"No more than a dragoness protecting her chick and her horde from poachers would be considered _evil_." Clawstorm replied smoothly, the comparison thankfully making some sense to all the men at the table, dragons of various species were, after all, notorious for their protective streaks as well as their tendency of seeking revenge when wronged.

Clawstorm smirked wryly. "Of course if you need further proof I can always recount the latest results and specifics of my more recent research project, it involves the use of glamour spells as well as a binding charm to properly seal up gaping wounds to prevent patients from bleeding out during transport to hospitals, which I'm sure you can imagine would be rather tricky to properly calibrate and program since blood vessels, bone, muscle, and skin all have very different types of cells that make them up, however my team and I have found a possible way around that by using the regenerative properties of sea slugs-"

"It's fine. We believe you." The leader held up his hands. "That is more than enough for us to believe you, aren't I right lads?"

The youngest nodded meekly, looking like his brain was about to fry, and the biggest and most silent of the group grunted in acknowledgement.

"Perhaps if you explained more about the sea slug- OW! Right. We believe you." The goggle-wearing man clutched the side of his head where the leader had sharply swatted at him.

"Do you believe me enough to help me in taking down your employers, the _same_ people who _strapped bombs to your bodies without your knowledge and tried to kill you without a second's thought_?" Clawstorm carefully pointed out.

"Ma'am, the only people who currently want to see our former employers dead and gone more than _we_ do is _you_." The leader assured with dutiful nods from all around the table. "Especially young Todd over here." The man jerked his chin towards the youngest.

"I was born and raised in the kingdom of Lance, to be perfectly honest my Lady I-I never felt any real hatred towards you witches, I was even taught to read and basic math by one who braved being caught by the guards to teach my village and to give us as much food as she could smuggle to us… but when my girl Angeline got pregnant with our child… she became very ill, we could not move her to the safety of your kingdom and I feared for both her and the child… the guards have been looking for some local boys with families to train and put into their ranks in exchange for food, medicine, and a better house close to the palace. They- they said that as long as I worked hard and stayed alive they'd help provide for Angeline and the child!" The young man's voice quivered.

"So you joined up. To protect and provide for your family." Clawstorm nodded in understanding. "You did what you had to do, however now that they've sent you on what they have ensured to be a suicide mission…"

"The lord's payment ticket only pays month by month for housing, in two weeks they will evict Angeline and even then I do not know how she will be able to get enough food for herself or call for a healer, she is bedridden!" The young man was crying now.

Clawstorm swore passionately under her breath. "Do any of you know how many citizens, not counting the guards, are still in the kingdoms?" she bit back a bark in her tone.

"The latest official census marked that there were over a thousand locals in the kingdom of Lance and around five thousand total in all four kingdoms including those who had joined the royal guard and not counting the lords and ladies who run the lands." The leader informed, patting the crying youth on the back.

That was surprisingly more people than the outside reports that Clawstorm had reviewed had guessed, but it was still a very tiny amount compared to the _three billion_ that had once lived in just the kingdom of Lance alone back in her parent's school days. "How many mercenaries are there to keep everyone from running away or starting a revolution?"

"I'm not certain about the other kingdoms but we've got nearly three hundred in Lance, including the locals like young Todd over here who have joined up, but we've also got golems, wisps, and zombies to make up for the lack in numbers and to save money since they don't have to pay 'em." The leader continued.

"Zombies?" Clawstorm muttered, the zombies that she knew tended to be rather gentle creatures and it was difficult to compute that these kinds of lords would hire an undead species, and she highly doubted that any self-respecting zombie wouldn't demand hazard pay.

"Or I suppose you could call them anther kind of golem I suppose." The leader relented. "Rather vile things, the lords order us to dig up the graves in each village cemetery and cart any dead that we come across back to these factories where some witches, wizards, and other magical beings that we have captured turn the bodies into working skeletons that patrol the inner cities, and like the golems and the wisps, stick strictly to the orders that they are programmed with."

Okay, ew! Clawstorm cast the man her flattest squinty-eyed look that she could muster over the mental image of some village kid having to watch his own beloved granddad's skeleton marching around the streets at night.

The leader shrugged. "Hey I didn't say that we were good, honest men- well save for young Todd here- just that we draw the line at our employers trying to actively kill us for a cause that we don't personally believe in and that we are only being paid to do."

"Do all of the men wear the same uniforms we found you in?" Clawstorm asked knowingly.

"Not just us, the golems and the zombies also- oh." The goggle wearing man squeaked once he got the point.

"They wouldn't." The leader sounded faint.

"It would be a lot easier to get bombs over to the enemy side if those bombs had legs and were armed to the teeth ready to fight it out before they go boom." Clawstorm said knowingly. "And considering who your bosses are really working for it wouldn't matter to them if you all died fighting other kingdoms or were detonated to cause the most damage possible in order to limit the amount of survivors that could turn on them if their plans fell apart. Keeping you guys alive to see the end of this is not their end goal after all and between the shrapnel damage bones and weapons can cause and the infections that people could die from the bacteria of some stranger's body infecting their wounds, there wouldn't be very many survivors to warn the other kingdoms of what's going on."

"But why?" Young Todd sobbed in horror, all around them Clawstorm could see the stoic dwarf guards turning a little more pale under the beards.

"War." The biggest goon whispered. "They… want… big war."

"You were ordered to ambush the queen's entourage and do as much damage as possible before leaving behind evidence that would accuse the Queen Lands of attacking and harming Ever After's beloved ruler, weren't you." The witch spoke to the leader.

"It was supposed to be the last straw to lead to war, first between your two kingdoms, then among others." The leader admitted gravely. "The plan was to attack here and there in the next few months to eliminate the leaders and their children and the families of fairytale characters and then blame it on you or some other convenient monarch until everyone on this continent was at war."

"And then when your use to Kline and Councilman Tomak was through you'd all be eliminated as well, giving them the perfect escape goats with the public citizens who would be by then so angry and afraid that they'll believe anything a kind and powerful warlock has to say about why the world suddenly stopped making sense and why everyone should follow him now that their beloved kingdoms are burned to the ground and their rulers are long dead." The witch realized the pieces dropping into place in her brain.

"Wait, a _witch_ has been doing this? Has been hiring us to hunt their own kind?" Young Todd gaped even as the others all the others murmured something along the lines of; "The rumors are true!" and looking just as puzzled.

"An ambitious one who is willing to go to great lengths and wait decades so that he can take over all of this land as the ultimate ruler while not having to worry about folks going up against him because they are blaming _you guys_ for starting the wars." Clawstorm stated, glaring hard at the mirror behind the men.

"They were going to kill us all." The leader hissed in outrage.

"How do you fellas feel about helping out a bit in convincing your colleagues that wearing those uniforms is a particularly bad sense in more than in just fashion?" Clawstorm asked.


	49. Chapter 49

A/n: Okay; even though the confusion has not exactly been stated in the comments _I know_ that there is some confusion over why I decided to just have both Apple and Faybelle be Raven's OT3, to that the simple answer is because:

1: The idea is funny as hex and after the cruddy past few months of dealing with insane people so I really didn't care because it was just that funny.

2: I wasn't in the right mindset to choose between the two or do a split thing at the end where one epilogue would have Apple win, and the other have Faybelle in, again: my work was just that cruddy on my creative juices.

3: Because ROYALTY! Yep, that's right, I even did some research into it, and you know what I found? Royalty, insanely rich people, and world leaders tend to take the odd way around things that would be done completely differently in the lives of peasants.

4: I wanted to do something with a poly couple at some point in these stories and it just seemed to make sense! Since Raven/Faybelle is a crack pairing, why not make it even more so with Faybelle/Raven/Apple?

5: Have I mentioned that royalty tends to do things differently? That's why they're so entertaining to read/watch/wright about!

So that's why I did what I do, hope that cleared some things up.

XXX

 _I dare think that old Snowy has gotten even more vindictive and manipulative over the years_. Clawstorm mused as she watched in horror as absolute pandemonium broke out in front of her.

For reasons that only made sense to her royal fair highness, the four converted goons were brought in to the next large concrete dungeon room to talk to their chained and doubly guarded with borrowed jabberwocky golems and everything, co-workers and try to convince them to believe them about the death-suits.

" _What's with the big boxes on wheels?_ " Clawstorm had asked Snow White after joining the other woman to watch the proceedings in an adjoining room with a large one-way mirror to hide them from the prisoners on the other side, the witch had eyed the metal boxes on trollies with wires hanging all about them with a distrust that had come from years of having to deal with Snow White's usual secretive attitude.

In response Snow White had held up a finger, telling Clawstorm to wait a moment before speaking quietly into a walkie-talkie to someone in the other room.

And that is when a witch guard stepped forward to tell the five prisoners who were still wearing their death-suits to not try anything to disturb the boxes all around them for Snow White's forces had just barely acquired the machinery possible to stop the self-destruct signals that would cause their uniforms to explode.

And almost right on cue, before three of the prisoners could voice their dubious complaints about how they were obviously lying about the exploding uniforms since there was _no way that their employers could possibly get rid of such valuable assets such as them,_ two prisoners "miraculously broke free" of their assigned guards and knocked two metal boxes out of commission, both going into a ranting fit about the glory of death and the destruction of the impure just as everyone's uniforms started beeping and glowing their warning that they'd be exploding soon.

Clawstorm immediately sent raw power into the golems she had lent out, aiding the converted prisoners and the White family's witchy soldiers in ripping the clothing off the panicked non-ranting mercenaries. The two who had been ranting had to be knocked out before their uniforms could be ripped of completely as well.

"Miss Janet could you please activate the emergency dampening technology and be prepared to activate the blast doors in room C, sector A." Snow White continued speaking calmly into her walkie-talkie even as she slung a companionable arm around Clawstorm's waist. "Help heard everyone to the far right of the room dear, and feel free to just throw those tack clothes to the far left, don't worry I've got this all under control, you'll see." The queen assured the witch

And being far from stupid enough to ask demanding questions from an obviously insane lady who was _freaking humming merrily to herself_ while everyone scrambled into place, Clawstorm's golems chucked the uniforms as far away from the others as possible before flying behind what appeared to be a transparent three foot thick wall of glass coming down from the ceiling, parting the room and the observation mirror into two sections.

"Shouldn't we be getting out of here too?" Clawstorm demanded desperately.

"Oh we should be fine, the glass is magically blast resistant, and if it isn't then I'm more than confident that your magic will be strong enough to protect us." Snow White practically sang as she snuggled closer. "I honestly can't believe that those men were just going to leave my precious little Apple an orphan along with hurting her former roommate and best friend! It's a good thing that my people have caught them or I don't even know how they'd be treated by the other realms.

 _A good thing for them my ass, if they'd been caught in the Queen Lands they'd all be arrested and simply be given deals for a more comfortable life in prison in exchange for any information they'd give us about their employers_. _And wouldn't Anton and Prince Charming be the ones to take over raising Apple?_ Clawstorm thought to herself as she raised her hands and put up a magical shield that encompassed the entire wall where the window glass was affixed.

A tense silent moment went by, one where Clawstorm was actively trying to convince herself that Snow White was clinging to her because she was preparing herself for the explosion like a decent fair maiden _and definitely not_ snickering at the terrified looks of the prisoners in the right half of the room.

One of the naked men piped up. "I don't think that anything is gonna hap-"

A loud boom accompanied by a brilliant orange and white explosive fire and bits of green material flying everywhere interrupted him.

XXX

"They-… They tried to kill us! The witches were telling the truth!" A naked man gaped after a stunned silence.

Some people jumped when two figures emerged from a swirl of reddish-purple magic, the nude men instinctually covering themselves when two female figures emerged, the one wearing all white and gold clinging gleefully onto the arm of the one wearing black and silver.

"Alright! Now that the imminent threat of having a bunch of exploded hired men splattering the walls and floor in large jam-like red smears has been avoided; let's discuss what just happened. The people who hired you lot just tried to kill you since your use to them is no longer needed, your fellows have already established that everyone who works for your former employers wears a version of these exploding uniforms, we also know that the two men who have been pulling the strings behind everything from the killing and abducting into slavery of witches and magical kin to the attempt on multiple fairytale royalty's lives are Councilman Tomak of the witch's council and his some Kline, both warlock, both actively betraying their own species and both having readily planned that at some point or another every single one of you who regularly wears these uniforms will at some point that is convenient to them, be terminated, whether you be on the battlefield or at base with your friends and- if you have them- lovers and children as well." Clawstorm spoke from her diaphragm, her voice booming in the concrete room.

"Now is the only chance for you to make a deal with her fair ladyship and her people, we need everything you can give us on your employers, the people who work for them, and the layout of where you work and live, we don't care how small or insignificant the detail _you will_ be telling us _everything_. If you don't, well that's too bad for you, because we don't have the time or patience to play a game of trade or run around the bush, those who do not cooperate will be put into solitary confinement- or in the two bozo's who tried to help your imminent demise along, they will be put in a nice padded room and will be given straight jackets to wear- the _sane_ ones will be in some hole in the ground miles away from the outside world for the rest of your lives because we are trying to save your fellow soldiers and if you are too bothered about being captured to save the people who you served beside then you're just not worth dealing with." The witch glowered, daring anyone to argue.

"Those who do cooperate with my people will be able to negotiate what happens next, the more helpful you are the better things will be for you in the long run. I can ensure with an eighty percent certainty that with cooperation and good behavior your names and faces won't be leaked on any media outlets and wherever you end up your known crimes will be for less… brutal charges." Snow White continued. "And trust me that is very generous considering what you all were ordered to do to our families and the rest of the fairytale kingdoms who would be very keen in knowing exactly who was willing to help these people go through with these unspeakable crimes."

"And let's not forget that we won't be killing you or blowing your pants off, rather we will be aiming to rescue innocent people, and do our best to reunite them with family on the outside as well as offer opportunities for displaced people to earn some money so that they can provide for their family members." Clawstorm finished staring pointedly at young Todd. "Pretty cushy deal considering…"

"So you will rescue them? My girl and my child?" Young Todd pleaded, leaning against the glass wall with both hands.

"Help us out and I'll even bring you along to aid me in getting her and your kid back safely." Clawstorm swore thinking about the spare leaper sticks that had to have been confiscated from all these men from earlier.

"I was wearing standard issue knickers a moment ago. I wear the damn thing to bed!" One of the naked men piped up before young Todd could say anything else. "My knickers exploded! They was gonna blow my crotch off!"

Murmurs and grumbles of horror as the rest of the men realized the same thing.

"These guys won't be going down very easily, there will be bloodshed." Said the man wearing goggles. "Are you going to employ your research in an emergency battle situation?" He asked almost hopefully, like a cross between a kid excited for the new toy to come out and a hopeful man praying for a hale Mary to see him through the upcoming battle.

Clawstorm smirked thinking about Kline and the little "gift" that she gave him several weeks prior, oooh he had to be rightly itchy by now.

"I already have." The witch assured all self-satisfied. "Now a show of hands; who wants to get dressed in non-explosive clothing and start making your would-be murderers pay?"

XXX

"Wow, you two look so pretty in these pictures!" Apple exclaimed brightly as she flipped through the images on Maddie's phone, she sat beside Faybelle as the two patiently waited for the designs on Raven's face to dry.

"What is she doing here again?" Kitty murmured to Charlotte, as the witch, herself, and Maddie stood a little farther away from the rest of the group.

"If by "she" you mean Apple White, let's just say that the three of them have reached… a truce of sorts, as long as Apple is in some way involved with all of this, that Raven is not completely taken away from her, she is content to aiding this process along in the name of… well I'm not completely sure exactly what she hopes to gain from all of this, but the point is that Faybelle's not putting up a righteous fight about it and the lot of them seem to be… well kind of happy about the arrangement to be honest." Charlotte explained to the best of her knowledge. "It's just a theory on my part but I'm half wondering if the three of them are attempting to… well be a threesome or something close to that because both Faybelle and Apple don't seem keen on losing Raven and Raven had seemed keen on walking away a few weeks ago because she couldn't choose between them."

"Ah." Said Kitty flatly. "So in other words this is Ever After royalty dealing with politics and love the best way they know how; to do exactly the opposite of what the common people would do in this situation."

"And by that you mean the three of them at best staying mere friends or at worse completely going their separate ways or having Apple and Faybelle battle for Raven's attentions?" Charlotte guessed.

"Those would be the options taken in Wonderland, the queens and the biggest influential clans are the only ones who have harems." Kitty informed.

"Well as long as Raven is happy with the relationship I suppose it's alright." Maddie mused sagely, or as sagely as she could get while bouncing around on her feet and giggling madly because she was terribly amused. "Even if she has managed to confound our loopy doo Wonderlandiful heads on her choice in partners."

"It just doesn't make sense!" Kitty hissed. "Apple _and_ Faybelle?"

"It's like you said; we're royalty." Charlotte pointed out in fake exasperation, which was undermined by barely concealed snickers. "When faced with an obvious choice we ignore it completely and go in another direction. It's kind of our specialty."

"…Maybe that's why Alice was so mad to begin with." Kitty shook her head as if in an attempt to shake off the ponderings on how _this_ was going to work out.

Maddie giggled at the whole thing, life was much more entertaining when you just took it in at a sideways angle and an open mind.

"I wonder how things are doing back at Ever After now that Apple is here and her mother is there?" Kitty wondered. "I understand that the two are not getting along but how that would affect the behavior of a woman with such… specific dreams for her child who is currently adamant not to fulfill them, I wonder how the fairest of them all is doing keeping up appearances while also keeping her cool…"

XXX

"Might I ask why you have a dungeon room that is explosion resistant and has some sort of large high tech transparent blast doors right in the middle of it?" Clawstorm asked with a growing sense dread as Snow White led her down a concrete corridor.

Snow White chuckled, sounding slightly nervous, the skip in her step faltering. "Oh you know; the dungeons aren't used much in this day in age and _well_ … I thought to myself one day earlier in the year that if they weren't going to used for their intended use then why not renovate them for personal uses!"

 _Oh dear gods she's lost it!_ "I have heard that controlled explosions can be rather therapeutic." _On cable TV, on one of those science shows or how-we-do-special-effect-in-the-movies documentaries_. Clawstorm mentally added to her carefully diplomatic words. _Not alone, underground, having your servants set charges just to feel better about the world, and oh sweet ancestors that's exactly what she's been doing down here hasn't she?_

"Oh I'm so glad you understand!" Snow White seemed to relax. "Things have been so difficult lately what with Legacy Day and my Apple being so angry with me about-… things." The queen faltered again. "So, uh… as Mira have you had the chance to interact much with Apple?"

"She is a very good girl who has been very kind in looking after my daughter in the face of these past uncertain months. I was particularly impressed with how Miss Apple has this veracious appetite for knowledge and how fascinated she can become on subjects ranging from culture to advanced mythmatics. If we were in another dimension I'd be on the front lines to suggest her for an internship program with my lab." Clawstorm freely admitted the truth.

The queen looked conflicted between proud and worried. "Oh! That's… nice. About that whole… _finding cures for poisons_ business that you talked about earlier…?"

"I quietly abdicated the throne and became a citizen in a dimension that views fairytales- as difficult as it was for me to believe at the time- just stories that someone made up centuries ago to tell young children an important lesson. I used the opportunity of being completely anonymous as well as the distinct public belief that fairytale do not exist to pursue my true passions over the past eighteen years which do involve inventing better ways to help people and improve that particular world in general… I never did have my full heart into villainy or taking the throne of my homeland, not that they really need a monarch over there in anything more than just for international relations and in name, the government is almost completely a republic now and… well I probably would have ended up doing more harm than good if I had stayed, a rather useless ruler I do believe I would have made." Clawstorm mused, carefully censuring her words, walking a tightrope with her emotions in order to avoid argument.

"You… did fantastic with my story." Snow White coughed. "Even though you didn't sign the Book… um."

"Whatever made you happiest your fair highness." Clawstorm stoically intoned lightly making Snow White flinch slightly in guilt. "Will you be willing to prepare a team to use one or two confiscated leaper sticks to help young Todd gather up his lover and unborn child after I make a few calls to see if his story checks out? I know of the witch that he speaks so highly about who teaches those trapped in Lance to read and write, she is well known in the Underground Railroad circuit."

"You think that he is telling the truth?" Snow White tried to keep the suspicion from her voice.

"He certainly did not appear to be very pleased to nearly being blown to pieces by his employers. It's worth checking out at any rate, the Underground keeps meticulous records of all citizens from those brave enough to venture out of the Queen Lands in an attempt to gather an accurate number of those still trapped inside so that plans can be made to fool the enemy's weekly census and smuggle those people out. I honestly shudder to think about how many hoops we would have had to go through if the enemy was actually invested in keeping all of those people in those kingdoms rather than merely being content to keep enough there to fool their royal puppets into thinking that they are serious about making their dreams of the perfect elitist playground come true." Clawstorm shook her head in disgust.

"Wait, you mean that this whole situation with those four kingdoms could have been worse?" Snow White gaped.

"Much, much worse." The witch assured gravely as they stepped inside an elevator. "This isn't Tomak's first attempt at obtaining power for himself, at the very least he has learned by now how easily his plans can go wrong if he makes things too elaborate, he merely needs to keep those lords delusional long enough to have them be around to become the perfect fall guys for when he's to rise to power as everybody's hero king."

Snow White thought about that for several moments. "But can it really be that simple to just… take over everything." She finally asked under her breath as they stepped out to keep her words out of earshot of several maids who looked up at them curiously, from the lack of recognition in their faces it was apparent that word had not reached them yet that the "Evil Queen" was in the building.

That or Snow White had actually managed to keep things quiet with downstairs gossip to which Clawstorm found this hilariously improbable.

"That's why I believe that he's got an ace or two up his sleeve. What he has been attempting would be utterly suicidal even for the most power hungry mongrel to even contemplate attempting, he's got something that is making him _believe_ that he's got a fair shot at all of this! That he can manipulate the system and it's people to do his bidding! I hate to say this but he and Kline are fairly smart, they've got something that _is_ in fact a _viable_ threat to the world as we know it."

"You're talking about… the erm… machine… correct?" Snow White muttered looking down, actual guilt hanging off of every pore of her body.

 _Good_. The witch thought with feeling but pushed the vicious feelings of satisfaction aside for the moment. "No, I'm talking about something far more dangerous than that."

Snow White's eyes were wide as the two stopped outside a guest room door. "What could that possibly be?" The woman hissed, her voice nearly shaking at the possibilities. Obviously nearly being assassinated was beginning to hit the woman's natural deliberate obliviousness pretty hard if she was so willing to believe that she was imagining worse things than a machine that could send space rock hurtling down from the sky.

"I have a hunch about what it really is…" Clawstorm hummed looking to the door, then to the maids trying to be inconspicuous, the witch could see one of them mouth _"Did ya catch wot they be sayin'?"_ while the other shook their head in the negative. "Is the girl in here?"

"Yes, with a social worker, she hasn't spoken a word since she's arrived and we've separated her from _that Lovelace woman_." Snow White informed, an edge creeping into her tone towards the end of her words.

"I take it by your tone that you don't necessarily approve of Madam Lovelace." Clawstorm was amused.

"The woman has the personality of a wet bag of rocks, and a fake damsel act that could grate on even the most virtuous of souls." Snow White hissed. "That… and she implied certain… things which you have, ah, _ascertained_ aren't true about… certain machines. As well as my and my daughter's legitimacy to the throne." Snow White cleared her throat delicately. "If you catch my drift."

Ah so Madam Lovelace had attempted black mail upon the most vicious black mailer and manipulator that Clawstorm had ever met. Reluctantly the witch's respect to the lover and mother of her enemies just went up a few notches… not that Snow White would merely just let that slide without some serious consequences to Madam Lovelace.

Clawstorm stepped away from the door slightly, just in case her voice would be carried inside if she didn't. "Oh I'm more that confident that you can deal with her _just fine_ my queen, such " _false_ " allegations to the fairest queen of them all? Surely the woman has lost her wits, sounds like a serious case of survivor's guilt to me; after all she _had killed_ her abusive husband in a fit of animal survival, ran away to work as a simple maid before the loneliness and the guilt of killing a man had consumed what was left of her sanity and had therefore abducted some innocent child to fill the void. After all in her own mind how best to atone for her sins would be to raise an innocent child in a world padded with nothing but sanitized protection from harsh reality."

"Yes!" Snow White seemed to catch on, her eyes flicking to the maids who were now listening in more obviously to the sudden rush of non-hushed and now decipherable whispers, utterly entranced by the story being woven. "That was more or less exactly what she said what her motives were. Of course the woman was never in any sane state to raise a child and between that, the fact that the child is not hers, and the healer's suspicions upon the child's illness… well I must say this international crime has turned out to be quite the affair Doctor Grimmbook, to the point of scandal that they had to call in to request my personal help! Thank you for coming down on such short notice."

Clawstorm nodded understandingly. "Oh yes I understand the need for discretion, from what I've read in the report the child must be utterly traumatized considering having to deal with _this brand of abuse_ and, oh dear lord, _that rather nasty thing you discovered_ as well from the mad woman on top of her own mysterious illness. I'd have to be some kind of _bad_ _monster_ to just ignore your call for my consultation on this matter. I do hope we can find out what this oddity is with the girl's system, I have my theories, or at least an initial place to start doing research upon from the report your healers have given me but I'll know more once I examine the patient."

"Of course, right this way doctor." Snow White walked over to open the door, from the corner of both women's eyes they could see the maids sporting open horrifically shocked faces as they whispered things about how heartbreaking this task must be for their beloved queen and how they were wondering how this dear child, whom they've never met or heard about until now, must be fairing in the midst of such great strife.

Clawstorm knew by the end of the day the kid that they had in custody and her abridged life story was going to be the talk of the palace, maybe to the point of reaching outside news magazines based over rumors of the royal family and by the end of it, if they were careful, they could have effectively spirited Tomak's lover and his daughter away to the point where not even he could trace their whereabouts back to them because by the time news reached the outlets the story would be so distorted that not even he could decipher what was truth and what wasn't.

 _This has got to be the most evil thing that I have ever done since Wonderland_. Clawstorm internally despaired before squaring her shoulders and walking forward.

XXX

Clementine was exactly the same as Clawstorm remembered her. Literally. The exact same age, appearance, she even wore a dress that Clawstorm had seen her wear on more than one occasion when they used to play together… as children.

Clementine was still a child in body.

It was so jarring, despite Clawstorm's initial suspicions towards this exact circumstance that the red glamour over her hair fell away to its natural black state.

Clawstorm inhaled deeply, walking forward slowly to the little blonde witchling, taking off her magic dampening regalia as she went. Clementine hadn't turned around from her place on the bed, merely staring listlessly at a cloth doll that the social worker watching curiously from beside Snow White must have given her, that or it was on the blonde girl when they took her.

Clawstorm began humming softly. "Clementine, Clementine, my dear friend Clementine how does Mary's garden grow? She's so ordinary, I dare say contrary, with flowers of cockleshells and silver-bells and-"

"Pretty maidens all in a row!" The little girl perked up, singing the end of the song almost on instinct. She cast Clawstorm a wearily curious look. "My best friend came up with that… how did you know it?"

"You don't recognize me Clementine?" Clawstorm mock pouted in an exaggerated fashion. "It took me forever and a day to find my best pal again but I haven't changed that much…"

Clawstorm slipped off her shoes and plopped cross-legged down on the floor in front of the girl, setting aside her dampening jewelry in favor of extending a hand that she lit up in reddish-purple magic.

"Have I really changed that much over the years to the point where you can't even sense me?" Clawstorm pouted a little more.

Clementine gasped hopping down from the bed and taking the other witch's hand in her own. "Clawstorm?" The girl asked, sounding almost uncertain.

Clawstorm felt foreign magic flood her body, she consciously forced herself to relax and not fight the onslaught of magic as she felt her form shift and shrink. Clementine would not harm her; she had always taken care with Clawstorm around her far greater magic.

"What the-?" Snow White crossed half the room in alarm when within a few heartbeats an adult witch had been enveloped in soft white light and in her place was a dark-haired child, a mini version of the woman she had spent most of the day with.

"It _is_ you!" Clementine burst into tears as she threw herself into Clawstorm's arms. "Oh I have missed you! It has been so lonely! Everybody I know has grown up and gotten old and I've been left all alone! No one has been treating me the same as they always have, I thought things would get better since brother came home but he hasn't been treating me the same either! I want to age just like everybody else but father and mother say that I can't, that I have to stay special and- I have been so lonely! They said that I'm not allowed to have any more friends! And my brother hasn't been acting like my brother and _I hate them_! I just want to be normal, I want my friends back and I want them to treat me like they used to!" The blonde witchling sobbed.

"It's your special magic isn't it?" Clawstorm's voice came out a lot younger than it had a few moments ago when she asked. "That's why you haven't been able to age or hang out with me anymore right? Why you had to suddenly disappear one day and why I couldn't find you no matter how hard I looked for you?"

"Yes!" The distressed child wailed. "I don't want to be the fairest of them all anymore! I don't want to become queen or save anyone after the stupid war! I don't want- I don't want you to _have to die_! Father said that when the troubles came from the evil humans that everyone, even you, will all die or will be proven unworthy by taking up the swords to slay their fellows and friends! That there was nothing to be done to save you and that I had to become queen because I can't age and I'll always be innocent and fair and only the fairest of the fairest of them all can lead people and become queen of everything! But I don't wanna! I don't wanna be queen anymore, I don't wanna have to learn how to sit on a throne and be all-knowing even though father and brother promised to do all the work, I want my friends back! I want my life back to how it used to be when I was still able to grow! And I don't want to replace this other lady who is already the fairest of them all even though mother says that she is so fake looking and that her daughter is such an airhead!"

Clawstorm swore that she could feel the air in one part of the room suck right out into a vacuum of indignant wrath.

"…And what do you think about that? Do you agree with your mom?" Clawstorm carefully asked.

"I dunno, never met the lady or her daughter so I just… I dunno. I always thought that fair maidens were born fair and stayed that way… kind of like how mama-… _mother and father_ say that I'll always be fair and pure for the rest of eternity." Clementine shrugged, sniffling wetly into the other witch's shoulder. From across the room Snow White made a relenting huff though Clawstorm could see out of the corner of her eye that the woman's hackles were still raised. "Mother's been acting weirder and weirder lately, so has father. It's happened once before… I'm not sure how long ago, it's getting harder and harder to tell time apart and my memories keep getting all blurry and my head feels so… _heavy_ it hurts lots sometimes but I remember you I-I'll remember this. I promise I will try my very, very best!"

"Can I try something?" Clawstorm asked. "With my magic? Will you let me try to clear up some of that heaviness?"

"You can try." The blonde sniffed. "But papa- _father_ says that it is the price of being a fair maiden, to experience some hurt before becoming queen, that once I'm crowned that I'll feel lots better and I'll get a happily ever after for all the people to celebrate. He says that my being born this way is a sign from the ancestors and that it is because they like me so much that I have gotten off so lightly since other fair maidens have to deal with really scary stuff in the stories- Ah! Huh? …Clawstorm I feel better already! Thank you!"

"No probl'm." The dark haired witch grunted under the effort of leeching some of the witchling's excess power from her body and into Clawstorm's own body where there was a magical link inside her magical core to her homeland's power. The land was the only place where such immense build up of magic could be dispensed safely, and even so Clawstorm could only siphon off so much before risking damage to herself, despite wanting to save her old friend from this fate. "'M gonna see if I c'n take care 'f th' pain f'r good kay? Hold out a lit'tl longer an' I'll see 'bout that f'r you."

"You'd really do that? For me?" Tears sprung to Clementine's eyes. "Oh Clawstorm thank you so much! Oh it's so nice having my friend back again!"

 _Oh Clementine my old friend, what have they done to you?_ Clawstorm wondered as the girl broke contact to hug her again, the older witch suddenly fitting all the puzzle pieces together in her mind around what this whole affair was about and getting as close as she'd ever come to praying that she could perhaps save her friend's life, or what was left of it, while she was in the process of saving everybody else's.


	50. Chapter 50

A/n: Sorry for the lack of updates lately, been very busy with some new life happenings and have been so tired I once fell asleep standing up.

But here's a short chapter, don't fret, lots of fighting and action to come soon.

XXX

 _Less than a handful of hours and I'm already exhausted, I'm getting too old for this and I've still yet to reach my second century of life._ Clawstorm mentally bemoaned, it was bad enough that she had to awkwardly play nice, nice with Snow bloody White, who if the events of the afternoon had been of any indication, had apparently grown to be even more terrifying in certain subtle ways underneath her perfect maiden act since the last time Clawstorm had any contact with the other woman. She didn't mind the fact that they had avoided getting into a massive fight… even though a big part of her still admittedly itched to tear the other woman a new one and leave her to the tender care of the assassins… Snow White was proving useful thus far and Clawstorm understood the pressing importance that having a completely unhinged powerful ally being helpful in taking down the enemy was a necessary evil…

But did the crazy lady have to be so damn _clingy_?

Clawstorm shook her head as Snow White, who was holding the miniature witch to her side as they walked molding her leg to Clawstorm's body, and led the witch to a chair while the two waited for the queen's husband and his lover to arrive.

The witch let out a frustrated breath first it was already one big mess but now this little surprise blast from the past came up? Not even comic book heroes and villains had plot twists this weird and they either ran around in public wearing footie pajamas with their knickers on the outside or they were practically naked to start with (although it was fair to say that most plot twists in the comic world weren't really all that weird anymore, seeing as how in Clawstorm's opinion the many themes found in comics tended to develop distinct predictable patterns after a while and… well she did love the art but when you could predict what was going to happen with about an eighty percent margin of accuracy one does tend to get turned off to most of the plot save for the rare instances when the writers actually came up with something surprisingly different or with a satisfyingly happy ending for everyone).

The witch sat down as daintily as she could (hey she may be a criminal in hiding but at least she was still a well-bred criminal) in an ornate chair that looked almost as though it were actually made of gold with the finest ivory silk to upholder it… actually Clawstorm didn't put it past the White family to have any less in furniture…

"We saw what happened on the mirror-camera." Prince Charming announced as he and Anton walked in, confusion written on his features.

"In answer to your unspoken questions; yes I know her, you may vaguely remember her Anton, she's the one who healed your arm when you managed to break it falling out of that tree when you were seven and I was nine." Clawstorm smiled wistfully at the warlock, her body was now roughly that of a pre-teen's. "You were attempting to runaway from my nursemaid who was trying to stuff you into that horrid formal suit if memory serves me right, of course I can't say that I was a very good ruling influence on you seeing as how I was right up there in the tree with you, stark naked and planning ways to incinerate that lacey dress…"

"And Miss Clementine never minded dressing up so she was on the ground laughing at us." Anton nodded, indicating that he did indeed remember. "I always did find it odd that she never appeared to have a family name to go by… My Dark Lady… if I may ask, is she-? Has she not aged at all? I was under the assumption that such a condition was a myth!"

Clawstorm shook her head. "It's no myth I'm afraid, though it is widely misunderstood here in this diminution to the point where the consequences can get rather deadly." Clawstorm tiredly looked up to her bewildered human hosts. "She suffers from an incredibly rare condition found in witches, one that prohibits the victim from aging… she is, as you may have guessed, my childhood friend, and I must say that finding out about this has… well it explains a lot about everything about why Tomak has felt that it is his prerogative to become the king to everything."

"I understand that the… girl?" Snow White asked even as Clawstorm nodded indicating that this was the correct way to address her old friend. "That the girl was told that she'd be the one to replace myself and all the other maidens as the sole fairest of them all if her father was successful… and I can reluctantly admit that I do see how her youthful stature might be useful in that regard, however I still don't quite understand how a little girl could be the key to all of this."

"I understand that the myth behind the illness has gotten to the point to where it's not as well known as it was in the old days so it wouldn't become that much of a threat to the old fairytale system as it is now… that is it won't until the body count begins to rise." The witch sighed, stretching her back as her body grew into its late teens.

"Well before I go into the mythology surrounding the illness in _this_ dimension I should point out that in the dimension where I did my studies they have done more in-depth research into the illness; they call it the _Deadman's Frozen Time_ disease or the _Tiny Corpse Syndrome_ depending on which side of the academic argument you are about how it forms. It's an extremely rare condition found only in witches where a witchling never goes through the transformation from child to adult powers." Clawstorm began as she stood up and paced the room, now in her adult body, periodically peeking over to the closed door to the next room where Clementine dozed in the comforting presence of Clawstorm's bone golems, apparently the girl felt safe with the scent of Clawstorm's magic all around her.

"Normally in a witchling their powers naturally internally grow and peak at a steady, but slow rate until they reach their thirteenth year where their powers mature and settle down into proper manageable levels, in this illness however the victim's powers build up at an abnormally fast rate and peak chaotically until the magical core becomes damaged beyond repair and magic then oversaturates the production of the body's cells and DNA strands until they… well stop. It may appear at first glance that you've stumbled across just about the most powerful witch ever with all the magic that they're wielding but the cruel reality is that the victim's own powers are slowly killing them, and it gets really painful as time goes on. First they stop aging, then they stop eating, drinking, then sleeping, and finally they just stop moving until their bodies just shut down on them, in many cases their corpses don't even rot due to the sheer amount of magic that has gone through the flesh when they were alive!"

Clawstorm takes an unsteady breath. "It's a… very cruel disease, both in the fact that those who suffer from it have to deal with outliving the people they love… and in the fact that they are cursed to slowly lose their minds as the disease progresses… memories become harder to create, basic tasks become too difficult to do on their own, and furthering cognitive abilities like learning new things and growing up to at least become an adult mentally are just… impossible…" The witch looked away. "In many cultures, especially including the ones found here in this dimension, the illness is mistaken for a blessing, the children from this dimension are seen as eternally virtuous, no matter what you do to them the lore dictates that they will always be pure."

"That's why they call them the _Holy Fairest_ here." Anton added. "There are accounts of families in the old days, before it became more commonly known of the tragic decline in health, who use the _Holy Fairest_ suffer to go up in life, ascending through social classes to become kings and queens if they have a daughter or son who has it or, more commonly in our present time, they more often than not get sold off to some foreign monarch who wants to have an eternally fair and perfect spouse in exchange for the child's family becoming important members of the court."

"And on that note… and in the experience that I've had with trying to cure the damn thing it's an all around very scary experience for those who suffer from it." The witch concludes in the ensuing silence.

"I'll bet." Prince Charming exhaled heavily. "Wait. You tried to find a cure for it?"

"She's a Doctor of some sort that goes around curing poisons and curses." Snow White informed to the two surprised men.

"Well… it's more like I've just got a bunch of degrees and one doctorate so that I can go around curing poisons and curses." Clawstorm coughed in embarrassment. "And the team I was apart of… did eventually find a treatment and a cure for the disease, as well as a way to temporarily relieve whatever pains that the sufferers go through however it's more effective if it's caught within the window of either before the witch turns thirteen or at least before they turn sixteen… after that, the longer that they are left to go on in this state there is just too much damage that is done to the mind and body for them to live a perfectly normal life."

"If it's such a cruel disease then why would a man like Councilman Tomak not attempt to seek out a cure for his only daughter? You said so yourself that he was smart for a conniving bad guy." Snow White asked. "I mean if it was just her ignorant mother behind all of this I'd understand but the girl did say that her father had a plan to take the pain away from her while also taking over the world. I mean that's what she meant by those words right?"

The witch paused in her pacing swallowed, taking a moment to choose her words carefully. She did not want to admit this but… well there was no choice now. The family secret was what ended up putting them all in danger so maybe it would be the thing to help them all protect the future. "The main reason from what I can see as to why Tomak would be willing to put both of his children at risk is because… in ancient times, long before the world as we know it existed, some of our witch ancestors created a… symbiotic relationship with the land, connecting their magic to it in much the same way you humans used to believe that the good health and personality on your monarchs directly related to the good health of the land. These witches who managed this became the leaders of their covens and as time moved on, kings and queens to their ancestral realms…"

Snow White's eyes widened. "So you're- your power is…?

"It is not an inherited power that can be controlled nor used for one's own personal benefits, and not just anybody can take the power of the very earth, sea, and air itself into themselves." Clawstorm spoke lowly, a warning lacing her words. "Yes my home kingdom is indeed directly linked to my own magic in a purely symbiotic and instinctual way, as it is so connected with every three recent existing generations that are directly descended from the original ancestors who defeated the old ruling family and claimed leadership over it three thousand years ago, in the old days the only way that a witch's realm would willingly give itself up to a new ruling family would be if they had managed to kill off the three recent generations of the old ruling family and if, and only if, they had someone in their family who could take of the sheer magnitude force of a realm's natural magic freaking out at the loss of it's protectors, the land's natural inclination being to flow it's power into any witch or magical being it can find until it seeks out the right one, there used to be a magic circle that prevented this but in the times of constant wars it was destroyed, if Tomak were to attempt such a stunt now…"

Anton's dark eyes widened considerably. "But my Dark Lady that would spell the deaths of _thousands_!"

"No it would be a number much higher than that since he's going to be going after _all of the lands_ witch, fairy, and troll included." Clawstorm snorted bitterly. "Yeah lots of innocent people will die but well on top of the wars he's gonna try to start and the panic he's trying to create, a bunch of people suddenly dropping dead for no good reason would only add to his legitimacy to rule the panicked masses now wouldn't it? That's the problem with Clemintine's condition, the only available research done in this dimension in regards to her illness are all based of the misinformation and the common lies that all say that she'll be cured of her pains and of her symptoms if she were to become one with the lands... it only offers a temporary relief actually…"

"Temporary?" Prince Charming asked, sounding faint. _So many dead innocents over a little child and a power hungry man…_

Clawstorm was silent for a moment, her head hung in remembered grief. "It was in the early days of my career… I had just finished my thesis and the applications for my research seemed limitless, I was… intrigued by this particular condition when I heard about it and personally jumped aboard the team who had been trying to find a cure for over two centuries by that point… Two of the oldest cases that myself and my team worked on were two _five hundred-year-old_ warlock twins who had never managed to grow past the age of six… we had already begun work on the younger subjects with the more promising results the younger the patients were, but those two… nothing was working and they had already gotten to the stage where they weren't moving very well on their own, the cure that we had been rather close to creating would not guarantee that they would survive not having so much distilled magic flowing through their flesh, so myself and another witch monarch volunteered to attempt… an unconventional emergency procedure involving a serum derived from our donated blood… and, for a while it had seemed to be working, they were improving, they could even speak my name and even remember to recognize me whenever I visited… that is until they began growing a… tolerance to it."

The witch took a deep breath and shook herself out of most of her apparent sorrow. Those boys especially had tried their hardest when the fog had been briefly lifted, did their very best to remember her name even when they started to decline for heaven's sakes! It still seemed so _unfair_ that the one to have survived still vaguely recognized _her_ even when he had forgotten his own _sibling's_ existence entirely… "The treatment did manage to improve their conditions, to the point to where one of them was actually able to survive past five years and age once the cure was eventually administered… but unfortunately, like with so many of our patients, the damage had already been done by the time we got to them, I still get letters and the occasional artwork along with status reports that the families and the asylum send to me on occasion…"

Snow White stared at the closed door to the adjoining room where Clementine still slumbered on peacefully. "What condition will she be in when we administer your cure?"

Clawstorm bit her lip and thought about it. "Hard to say without knowing her actual age. Human mothers who birthed witchlings with this condition gain a… well I guess you could call it a natural instant _fountain of youth_ effect, as long as their child survives they will live at the same age as they did when they birthed them as long as they stick nearby and I sure as hell know that Clemintine was a hex of a lot older than thirteen when she and I became best friends. Damn she could be older than her brother Kline for all I know, old Lovelace died off nearly a decade before I was born and I _know_ that Madam Joanna was secretly seeing Tomak for years before that."

"Well that woman and her poisoned ideas is surely not going to get anywhere near that sweet little girl as long as I live and breathe! So she's not going to be able to bargain information in exchange for eternal youth." Snow White swore with conviction. "How far away does the mother have to be for the fountain of youth thingy to stop having an effect?" The woman asked with sudden false innocence.

"About sixty feet. Give it a few weeks to a month or two and she very well might begin to show her true age as the magic leaves her." Clawstorm admitted reluctantly, feeling conflicted between completely agreeing in getting Clementine to a better family and feeling utter horror that Snow White was considering taking someone's child away on top of sentencing that same child's mother to what could very well be a slow and painful death sentence.

"I'll have her moved to a charming small village in the middle of the rural wilderness at the far end of the kingdom, the prison there may not be very elaborate but it is nondescript and Tomak won't think to look for her in someplace so ordinary. Once she's finished… growing old- _and beyond if that's what happens_ \- we'll monitor her body for signs of an approximate age."

"… _Or_ you could keep her here for a while, I know somebody who actually knew Mrs. Joanna Lovelace when she was a young adult and… the magic can easily pass through walls without Clementine ever having to actually see her ever again, it's going to take lots of sessions with a children's shrink for her to understand that what her family has been doing is wrong and for her to move on from them, the best thing that we can do is to keep earning her trust and… well I don't like her mother either but let's act like it was all one big surprise that once we've cured her of her illness her mother… er… that is to say we really don't know just how old this woman really is. Some of the human mothers that either volunteered their children for the program that my team worked of for the cure… or where the children had to be rescued from them… they um… kinda turned to skeletons. I was there. I still get nightmares. Trust me it's both really messy and not pretty at all." And slow, Clawstorm mentally added, remembering sunken eyes blinking slowly up at her and skeletal grins that were less grins and more receding dry blackened flesh over teeth, unable to move, only able to hiss out occasionally as they slowly decayed alive until the doctors got the special permission to send out for the special people they were all ordered to forget even existed, to administer the chemicals to end the suffering.

"If we must." Snow White sighed a put out sigh of a maiden, much to Clawstorm's discomfort. "Who do you have in mind?"

"And this is the part where I'm really not going to like it much at all." Clawstorm bemoaned to herself as she looked upon her immediate future with growing dread.

XXX

"And that's what her Dark Ladyship the Evil Queen said for me to tell you Lord Headmaster sir. She also requests that due to the nature of this state of emergency that you as quietly as possible send your best Healers out to the winter palace so that they may help begin administering the cure to dear little Clementine." Mira spoke shyly yet worriedly. "She also stated that she understands that she is a criminal but… please excuse my phrasing sirs but her exact words were that she's too busy trying to save the- _explanative_ \- world from an- _explanative, explanative_ \- and if she had known that the Jabberwocky would tamper with her fake curse then she would have… um _lots_ of very graphic stuff and made lots of leather boots for good measure. Her words not mine if you please bear in mind sirs!" The witch bowed apologetically.

The Grimm Brothers both stared at the redheaded girl.

Mira politely kept her gaze at her feet.

The Headmaster sat back heavily in his office chair while Giles continued to stare unseeingly at the witch.

"Your lordships?" Mira peeked meekly from a curtain of white flowered red hair.

"Miss Shards… did your nation's monarch look well treated to you?" The Headmaster asked, his tone thick with worry.

That threw Clawstorm off a bit. "Well sir she didn't particularly seemed to _like_ having to work with her fair highness Snow White, but otherwise she seemed well kept."

"Have to work with?" The Headmaster zeroed in on the phrasing.

"Er." Clawstorm mentally kicked herself for that slip up. "I'm to understand that Snow White came across the Evil Queen shortly after I was dropped off, hiding in the forest until she could find a way out of Ever After…"

"She didn't just fly or transport away?" The Headmaster pressed, his concern rising. "Was she injured severely?"

"Um… I'm to understand that Snow White made a convincing argument over the fact that she'd like for the Evil Queen to do bad things to the people who just tried to kill her sir. But her dark ladyship the Evil Queen is still walking I know that much. To be honest sirs I… I know that something big and bloody very well may go down soon and her dark ladyship knows this too, she can't afford _not_ to seek help from Snow White sirs." Mira swallowed nervously.

"Miss Shards do you know how to contact Clawstorm Queen?" The Headmaster asked directly this time, leaning forwards.

Clawstorm's mind blanked for a moment. "I'm so sorry sir… she said that she's not going to listen to any demands that she go back to prison… or speak with anybody outside a select few because her exact location has to be kept a secret until she's right on top of the enemy with _all_ the swords drawn sir!"

"This school is a safe place to hide." The Headmaster seemed to be arguing with the air. "She's proven herself enough that she won't be imprisoned again by our hand at the very least, we can even hide her in plain sight so that nobody would suspect a thing, I know that it would be far from ideal for her but at least it would be better than her having to deal with the queen of Ever After!"

 _I got there way before you old man._ Clawstorm thought, delicately focusing on not thinking about how both she and her father had come to the same conclusions. "I'll be sure to suggest it to her if I ever get the chance to speak to her again Lord Headmaster." Mira promised diplomatically. "Though she may argue against it, she seems to be highly concerned over putting the school and it's students at risk in any shape or form with whatever looming battle that may be coming up."

"So she disapproves of the queen involving someone as young as you in all of this too." The Headmaster sighed, coming to his own conclusions. "She really would have made a good queen if given the chance…"

"Her fair highness will be requesting that her daughter stay with Lady Raven for the foreseeable future as we speak, her extended stay away from school forms are included amongst the information that I have given you, what shall I tell her fair highness about the Dark Lady's request for your assistance?" Mira interrupted, Clawstorm not really feeling up to even coming close to deciphering that last statement.

"Of course, I'll be over there first thing in the morning." The Headmaster waved his hands as if such a thing was never up for debate in the first place. "In the meantime I'll read over my daughter's research so that I can better explain to Healer Phalange that poor girl's condition."

Giles stiffened. "Brother-"

"Thank you Lord Grimm Brothers I will be taking my leave now." Mira stated with one final bow before quickly making for the door.

"Of course Miss Shards go get some rest, I'm terribly sorry that you've been dragged into all of this." The Headmaster spoke apologetically. "I will do my best to make it so that all future interactions are merely between us and the queen, you just focus on resting your injuries and creating more of those charms for Queen Charming. In fact, take Monday and maybe the next day off, you look like you need it."

"Of course Lord Headmaster, thank you Lord Headmaster." Mira nodded before walking out the door.

"And it's just Headmaster and Giles around here Miss Shards!" The Headmaster called as the girl slipped out.

"Brother." Giles sighed.

"Yes Giles, I know, I called her my daughter didn't I?" Milton sagged in his seat, putting his face in his hands.

XXX

"This is just too rich, she's acting _nice_ to you now?" Simone sneered as she poured herself another cup of tea the moment Clawstorm walked through the door into Mira's dorm. The second Clawstorm had gotten back to school she had sent a digital copy of everything that she had given the Headmaster and a copy of all the information that Snow White's people had been able to gather from seven surprisingly willing ex-ninja goons to all her friends so that they'd get a head's up on what was going on (with a few quick notes jotted down to indicate Clawstorm's unfiltered thoughts on the whole day).

"How did the lot of you get a table this big into the room without anybody noticing or mentioning something to me as I walked up here?" Clawstorm ignored the question directed at her.

"I asked Daring and Dexter to help, I said that it was going to be a surprise gift for you since you barely had enough money to buy proper furniture for yourself and that you loved tea so much I figured that this was a good place to start." Blondie explained while spreading jam onto a piece of toast. "Professor Bad Wolf called everybody up to meet here because we're concerned and we wanted to be here for when you got back. Beauty and Maid Marion are over in Wonderland seeing if they can recruit The Cheshire Cat into helping you guys with doing some independent recon on the kingdom of Lance since we figured that having Wonderland back up Snow White's people on this would be the best course of action. Thanks for the digital report on what's going on by the way, your computer skills are getting lots better lately."

"Thank you and when the danger of Tomak finding out where we're hiding his kid is over I'd like to request that you do a special story on that particular illness… it's high time this dimension learned the truth about it and knew that a cure does indeed exist." Clawstorm requested as she pulled out the one empty, and heavily cushioned chair at the table and allowed King Charming to help her sore and stiff form into it.

"Happily." Blondie nodded. "You need to rest, you look almost as though _breathing_ hurts you."

"The Headmaster said something similar, he's allowed me to take Monday and Tuesday off… but with my luck I won't even get that much time to heal before the next big issue transpires."

After that Clawstorm launches into the retelling of the events that had transpired in the last few hours.

"No wonder you look so exhausted!" Red Riding Hood eyed her friend critically.

"Part of that has to do with me keeping part of my attention on my golems back at Snow White's place. Clementine seems to be more comfortable when she can sense my magic; she's sensitive enough to be able to pick up on my scent even through the dampeners. So what do you guys think about all of this 'cause to be honest I'm flying pretty blind here with all the…" the witch hesitates to put a name to the helpless feeling coursing through her.

"Personal feelings messing with your game?" Queen Charming finished in Clawstorm's stead. "Don't worry we kind of figured that things would get that way the other day so we've decided to pick up the slack while you're still reeling."

"Yeah. That. And thank you I do need other people with clearer heads to help me out here." Clawstorm admitted. "Snowy's scarier now, more so than I remember, 'nd her being nice to me is… really weird. I can tell that she feel guilty for the whole rocks falling out of the sky thing but she was clinging to me like I was an old stuff toy practically the entire time I was at her palace."

"Nah, seriously?" Bad Wolf blinked in surprise.

"I'm pretty sure she left bruises on top of my bruises." Clawstorm almost, but not quite whimpered. "And then this whole thing with Clementine happened and I just… it feels like today I just keep getting reminded that I'm a mad scientist, not a villain, or a hero, or even a soldier! Where do I go from here? I always figured that I could just… choke this whole mess out you know? Be the big bad Evil Queen who was so scary that entire world feared the mere mention of her name and wait in hiding until Kline or Tomak made a mistake and have their little puppets turn on them while I snuck what information that I had gathered on their group to the proper authorities so that then the other realms would have to step in, and then when everything was all said and done I'd escape prison, leave behind that explanation on why I actually did what I did before I had a word or three with those be damned- I mean darn Jabberwocky about why that confetti spell was still so high in the sky all these years later, and then just… quietly go back to the monster dimension." The witch shrugged.

"And leave everyone wondering and scrambling all over themselves about you suddenly not being so evil after all but in fact the unsung savior to everything they hold dear." Simone snorted. "And your daughter and mother?"

"They'd hunt me down, give me the yelling to of my life, and then once all the yelling was done they'd proceed to try to drag me back into the family loop I'm more than sure about that." Clawstorm nodded to herself. "It's just how things are done with us, been that way since the original Evil queen if the stories and personal diaries of Queens past are to be believed; now however things are just going to be awkward, what with the whole thing with my father and my daughter's two love interests lurking in the background…" Clawstorm made an unimpressed face.

"Wait… both Apple and Faybelle…?" Blondie questioned looking highly confused.

"Royalty do things differently dear, especially when you've got a fairy and a witch with a kookie family history in the mix." Simone explained. "Clawstorm's great-great aunt had relations with all five brothers of the Lower Umperland's royal princes, and fairies… well let's just say that their higher class social structure can get pretty complicated."

"And Miss Apple is still pretty ticked off at her mother." Clawstorm added wearily. "Right now she's going to want to align herself closer to anything that has nothing to do with fairytales and… well…"

"You can't get as far away from fairytales as your daughter." Blondie finished sounding equally weary, both girl and witch half surprising each other by the similar looks of resigned dread that they were giving one another across the table. "So by two love interests you aren't talking about a love triangle…? …That… that doesn't sound like Apple is taking things very well…" Blondie felt safe in voicing since Clawstorm's expression on Mira's face seemed to agree with the human girl while the rest of the table just seemed to sigh and mentally thank whatever gods or spirits that they believed in that at least it wasn't their children.

"They'll be fine." Clawstorm tried to reassure herself more than the rest of the table. "My daughter will make sure that all three of them fully know what they are getting into, she's outspoken but very cautious when it comes to personal affairs."

"Er, yes and I know that Apple won't go past any boundaries… and she will listen to Raven who is listening to everybody else… and Faybelle won't stick around if there is unnecessary drama…" Blondie winced at her words.

"It's the lack of drama that she should be worried about." Bad Wolf muttered under his breath only to flinch when Red Riding Hood cast him a _Look_ , with capital letters and italics and everything.

"They'll be fine." Clawstorm repeated, still trying to convince herself. She was keenly at a disadvantage since she felt that being absent for so many years meant that she had no say whatsoever in anything in Raven's life anymore and as a mother that really worried her. "They won't rush into things, or do something crazy. Two thirds of them are cautious enough. It'll all work itself out before they even get to the point of crossing a point of no return…"


End file.
